Power Play
by Harleyquinnzelz
Summary: "I mean, what are we, a team?" In which six young adults learn that having superpowers is not all it's hyped up to be. Or, in which Beau Hart learns that sometimes a little chaos is exactly what you need. Nathan x OC "We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're a time bomb."
1. Hard Knock Life

**CHAPTER ONE:**

**Hard Knock Life**

"_Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you." _

_\- __**Dirty Dancing **_(1987)

_It was going to rain. _That was Beau Hart's first thought as she stepped outside in the weak morning light. The sun was obscured by a cluster of gray nimbus cloud and, even though the rain had not started yet, she could smell it hanging heavy in the humid air.

Rain seemed like the perfect accompaniment to this _perfect _day and as much as Beau wanted to turn right back around and shut the door behind her that simply wasn't an _option_. Beau owed a debt to society, you see, and the time had come to pay the piper.

At least, that's how the judge in the courts had put it and no matter how many times Beau had tried to object the meaning had come across perfectly clear.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

_But what about the crimes committed against her? _Those cries of protest had apparently been written off as a jealous, hysterical ex-girlfriend. The court was being lenient, she was told, she could get into some serious trouble for this. But since there was no damage and nothing taken Beau was getting by relatively unscathed.

_If _you could consider community service unscathed, which she didn't.

Rain _and _community service _and _the whole day had started with an argument with her mother. Really this was all shaping up to be a wonderful experience, truly life-changing. It was really making Beau think about what she had done and the consequences of her actions.

Like how next time, she wouldn't get caught.

To be fair, Beau was _not _a criminal. She didn't pickpocket or sell drugs, she had only been trying to take back what was rightfully hers.

She had just fucked it up royally.

She sighed in exasperation at just the thought, running a hand down her face in agitation. She had been largely unable to sleep the night prior over the anxiety of what today would bring and now the day was here and… well, everything that had happened so far led her to believe it was going to _suck. _

That was just pessimism talking, Beau decided as she began her walk, the wind blowing in a manner that made her think they could expect something a little more than just rain. Beau hated storms even more than rain.

She could really do with some positive thinking, a bit of optimism to brighten what was already a dreary day. Like…

_Her day was really, really going to suck. _

It had started, she supposed when she had slept through her alarm and had woken up with a start to realize that she needed to get her ass in gear if she wanted to get to the community center on time.

To her credit, Beau had gotten into the shower in record time but had been halfway through washing her hair when her mum had come down the hall, banging on the door about how she needed to take a piss, likely still drunk from the night before.

_Well sorry, Mum, if my getting ready is inconvenient to you. _

Ah, her mum had not taken kindly to that and had shouted about how ungrateful Beau was and how she deserved to be tossed on her ass right then and there.

_Alright, just let me get dressed first. _

Poor old Miss Edgecombe next door. The old bird liked to sleep late ever since her husband had died. But not this morning, it seemed, as Beau had seen her collecting her paper as she had been leaving, looking more than a little disgruntled, but not at all surprised. She had lived next door to Deborah Hart, after all, for the better part of two decades. Her actions were annoying, but not at all surprising.

Regardless, Beau had not gotten tossed on her ass, merely shoved out of the way when she finally unlocked and opened the bathroom door as her mother made a desperate rush for the toilet.

She was still drunk, Beau had gathered, but not quite so pissed that she ended up pissing herself. A shame really because at least that way, Beau likely wouldn't have had to interact with her mother at all this morning.

Still, even that little bit had been fine, nothing unusual, but Deborah Hart had come sniffing for a round two as Beau had stood in front of her bedroom mirror, toweling her hair off, already dressed in a pair of cut-offs and an oversized jumper than hung loose off one shoulder, revealing bare skin and a bra strap beneath.

"You're dressed like a slag," her mum said casually, leaning against Beau's door frame. "Planning on fucking your probation worker to get a shorter sentence. That won't work."

Was she speaking from experience?

Beau was used to these sorts of interactions by now didn't bother even looking at her mother as she tossed the damp towel across her bed and began to run a brush through her hair.

"Not with that attitude it won't," she said brightly.

Her mum pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes slightly. Beau had learned long ago that her mother often just went _looking _for a reaction and that not giving her what she wanted annoyed _her _more than she could ever annoy Beau.

"You really fucked up, you know that, getting caught like you did." Deb tried again, not bothering to keep the venom out of her voice. "Your boy got sick of your shit and you ended up right back here and now I'm stuck with you."

Beau snorted slightly, unsure where to start. First was the implication that Beau shouldn't have gotten caught, which yes was true, she had been careless. But Beau had _heard_, though never experienced, that mothers were meant to support the good in their child and discourage the bad.

Then she had called Zeke _her boy_, even though he clearly wasn't. Not anymore. It wasn't the breakup that had hurt so much as the method of dismissal, like Beau was something unpleasant to be taken out with the garbage. She had quickly been replaced by a newer, shinier model and, if that wasn't enough, he also did not seem to respect Beau enough to _give her back her shit. _

_I need them, _he had said. _What are you going to do with them? _

_I don't know what she's talking about _was what he had innocently told the cops.

Twat.

Finally, there was the way her mother had said that she was _stuck _with Beau with unrestrained resentment as if this had been Beau's first choice in living arrangements. The resentment was nothing new, it had always been there, ever since Beau was small, but Beau didn't like her mum anymore than she liked Beau and the woman had to be a complete and utter idiot if she believed that Beau would even be here if there was a choice, literally _any other choice_.

"Aw Mum," Beau said brightly. "At least this way I get the delight of your sparkling personality."

There was a bite to her words that was only ever reserved for her mother and Deb snarled like a rabid dog. "You're damn right," she said. "It's damn good of me to take you in like this. You've only ever been an ungrateful brat."

Ungrateful, as if Beau owed her something. As if Beau had not been largely responsible for raising herself.

"Shall I get a 'thank you' card for you on my way home then," Beau asked, blinking innocently. "'_Dear Mum, thanks for being an utter cunt for the last twenty years. Love, Beau._"

Then the shouting had started, fueling the headache that had been brewing behind Beau's eyes all morning. But Beau had endured it stoically, putting her hair in a braid and sliding on her lucky shoes, a dirty old pair of pink converse. Beau was in desperate need of a little extra help, her luck had been shit lately.

She had finally escaped as the fuel for her mother's fire was dying down, stopping only to dry swallow a pair of ibuprofen from the bottle in the medicine cabinet, before rushing at the front door, revealing for only a split moment in her freedom before remembering precisely where she was heading.

The joy of being away from her mother was quickly replaced by anxiety for the day ahead.

She figured there were only two ways that this could go. One, she might get stuck carrying out her community service with a group who, like her, had committed only minor mistakes, and were interested only in getting this thing over with and putting it behind them. Or, two, she could end up with delinquents who were at the precipice of the beginning of their lifestyles of criminal deeds and were hardened by their desire to do heinous, criminal things.

Or, perhaps there was a secret third option after all. Perhaps she ended up working with one to-be murderer (or worse a whole group of them, dear God) who decided that Beau was a prime pick for their first murder victim.

To-be murderers or no, the only way out of this was to go through it (or, she supposed, in the case of that last option, to _die_) and the best way she knew how to go about that was to put one foot in front of the other.

And that was exactly how she arrived at the community center because it wasn't like she had a car to drive.

"You're here for community service?" As she approached she noticed the tall black man standing out front, obviously waiting for other young offenders like her. He had a clipboard in his hand and a bored expression on his face.

"I am," Beau confirmed, mounting the steps and approaching him. Unsure what else to do she offered him a friendly smile. No use pissing off the guy that would be in charge of her while she put in the work.

"Name?"

"Beaulah Hart," she said, glancing around, wondering where the others were. Probably already inside or not arrived yet and if so they were pushing the line pretty thin. Beau was very nearly late herself.

"Alright, Beaulah-"

"Just Beau if you don't mind," she interrupted. "Pretty sure naming your child _Beaulah _classifies as child abuse. 'Course the courts didn't see it that way and my mum got away with it with no punishment at all."

It was an attempt at a joke, but this guy wasn't laughing at all which didn't bode well for her stint doing community service. Least they could have done was give them somebody with a sense of humor.

"Beau," he agreed. "My name is Tony and I'll be your probation worker. The locker room is inside on the left and you'll find a stack of jumpsuits there. Get changed and meet back out here."

_Jumpsuits? _Yeah, she had seen those god awful things, convict orange and impossible to miss. It wasn't just that they had to do this community payback bullshit, they had to be easily identifiable while they did it.

You know, just so mums could take their children by the hand and cross the street to avoid them.

To be clear, it was not the community service that Beau had a problem with. In theory, it was great. Fix things up so things wouldn't be shit for someone else. It was a nice sentiment. But seemed almost like a wasted effort, like whatever shit was cleared away, even more would take its place.

And beyond that, it was _embarrassing. _Beau wasn't a criminal, she barely thought what she had done would be considered a crime. And the jumpsuit felt almost like a brand like if she put it on she'd never be able to escape it. And Beau had spent her whole life trying to do that, hadn't she? Trying to escape the burden that she had been born with. When you come from trash, you do everything you can to not end up that way.

But this… well, this spoke for itself didn't it? Like all the effort she had put in trying to be a better person than either of her parents had all been pointless. It was an anchor trying to drag her down and Beau was just treading water and trying not to drown.

"Right-o," she said, stepping past him. "Locker room, jumpsuits. Got it."

She walked past him, stepping inside the monotone white and grays of the community center, looking around with a grimace. For a place that was meant to foster a sense of community, it was not very inviting.

_You've really outdone yourself this time, _she thought to herself, venturing down the hallway towards the locker room, berating herself, not for the first time, for getting caught at all. It should have been easy, simple. In and out, stealthy as a cat. She should have remembered that Mister Callahan next door always snuck out for a smoke at around 3 in the morning when he could be sure his wife was well and truly asleep.

The locker room was just as unimpressive as the rest of the place and she entered, her eyes immediately landing on the single jumpsuit, neatly folding and sat at the end of one of the benches.

Yeah, that color was _impossible _to miss.

She picked it up, allowing it to fold open and wrinkling her nose as she looked down at it, wondering just who had worn it before her. Slowly, she raised it to her nose to take a cautious sniff. If it smelled like B.O there was no way in hell that she was going to put it on.

Luckily it smelled of cheap laundry detergent and so, with a sigh she resigned herself to her fate.

God, she _hated _orange.

* * *

There were seven them assembled before Tony the probation worker, all dressed in their ugly orange jumpsuits and all likely wishing they were anywhere else.

"This is it," Tony said, winding himself up for a good, long monologue, looking at them all importantly. "This is your chance to do something positive. Give something back. You can help people, you can really make a positive difference in people's lives. That's what community service is all about. There are people who think you're scum. You have an opportunity to show them they're wrong."

"Yeah, but what if they're right?" The boy standing next to Beau spoke up suddenly in what was clearly an Irish accent, drawing everyone's attention.

She turned to look at him, eyes widening only a small fraction as she took him in. Tall, curly hair, bright green eyes. _Fuuuuuuck. _He was hot.

She looked away quickly, huffing out a sigh because hadn't Beau had enough trouble with hot guys in the past?

"No offense," he continued, "but I'm thinking some of us are just born criminals."

He tilted his head to the right, not-so-subtly gesturing to the boy in the hat on his left.

"Are you looking to get stabbed?" The boy in the hat asked venomously.

Huh, it was looking like it was maybe that secret third option.

"You see my point?" The curly-haired kid didn't seem too worried, looking back at Tony with a meaningful look.

"Your past doesn't matter," Tony said, probably ready to jump back into his previously interrupted speech when a phone suddenly rang.

Everyone turned to look at the pretty black girl who held her phone to her ear, obviously not giving a damn what Tony had to say.

"Doing my community service," she said into the phone, either oblivious to or not caring about all the eyes on her. "Boring as fuck."

"I'm still talking here!" Tony snapped.

The girl looked at him, rolling her eyes. "I thought you'd finished," she shot back.

"If my lips are moving, I'm still talking!"

"Yeah," the first boy said, drawing attention back to him. "But you could have been yawning or chewing or-"

"_Shit," _Beau muttered, looking away again and rubbing a hand tiredly down her face. He really was attractive.

"Problem, Princess?" the boy asked brightly. Shamelessly, he looked her over, clearly checking her out.

"Nothing," Beau said quickly, feeling her face heat up. What the hell else was she supposed to say? _Yes hi, you may be the most attractive person I've ever met in person. _She was sure that would go over great.

"Hang up!" Tony snapped at the girl.

"My probation worker," she said into the phone, obviously answering a question and pointedly ignoring Tony.

This initial meeting was quickly descending into chaos.

"You alright there, weird kid?" The curly-haired boy turned his attention off of Beau and onto the pale, nervous boy on her right.

He looked up, obviously surprised to find that the boy was talking to him, before averting his gaze. Beau felt a rush of sympathy for the boy, he was obviously very shy.

"Don't be disgusting," the girl said to her friend on the phone. "I'll call you later."

"_I'll rip out your throat and shit down your neck!" _The boy in the hat yelled at the curly-haired boy.

Beau's eyes went wide as she stared at him, shifting away and accidentally bumping into the boy on her right, who jumped slightly, looking up at her in surprise.

"Sorry," she said to him quickly, looking back at the boy in the hat who was clearly not over the insult the curly-haired boy had directed at him.

Although he was kind of only proving the point.

"We need to work as a team here," Tony said, obviously trying to regain some semblance of order.

"Can I move to a different group?" the tall, black kid asked suddenly.

Beau perked up, wondering if that was an option and looking expectantly at Tony. If he was getting moved to a different group then Beau was definitely asking to get moved, preferably to a group that didn't have a potentially murderous boy with a fondness for hats.

"What makes you think you're better than us?" The only other girl asked in a very thick accent.

Beau blinked, furrowing her brow.

"What is that accent?" The curly-haired boy asked, putting her thoughts into words. The others had also displayed equal confusion and Beau couldn't help but feel sorry for the girl. It wasn't her fault.

"What," she demanded, glaring at them. "Are you trying to say something?"

"That's just a noise," the curly-haired boy turned back to Tony. "Are we supposed to be able to understand her?"

"Do you understand that?" The girl asked, flashing her middle finger at him.

Ah yes, that headache that had been rumbling around behind Beau's eyes for most of the morning was back now with a fury and if this was what she had to look forward to all day she thought that she might prefer to just be in jail.

Slowly she raised her hand, causing Tony to look at her and sighing in exhaustion. "Yes?"

"If I've already given back to the community today can I just go home?"

Or anywhere else really because home was not looking particularly better than this situation if she was being honest.

The curly haired boy slung an arm around her shoulder, catching her by surprise. "Ah, come on Princess," he said. "Don't you like us?"

She felt her face heat up again as she shoved him away making him snicker.

"I think she _does_ likes me," he said to the guy in the hat.

"Hey!" Tony yelled, trying to get attention back on him. "Pack it in!"

It was a lost cause though, as the curly-haired boy was clearly set on antagonizing the one with a hat and Tony seemed to realize that quickly as he heaved a huge sigh. Beau doubted if he got paid enough to deal with them, she really did.

* * *

With a tilted head, Beau examined the graffiti that marked the bench she was currently working on painting. Some people, she observed, really had horrible grammar. But there was one particular bit that made her smile to herself. _Jenny + Rachel 4eva_ had been scrawled across the seat with a big heart drawn around it, the names messy and barely legible and the heart was uneven but the sentiment was sweet and she didn't know who Jenny and Rachel were but she genuinely hoped that whoever they were they were happy.

Beau also really hoped they stopped graffiti-ing benches because she didn't feel like painting over it every time they did.

On the other side of the bench the shy kid, Simon, was at work too, clearly not getting distracted by the words scrawled across the bench like Beau was. His face was puckered in a focused manner and he was painstakingly drawing his brush across the wooden slats of the bench, obviously not wanting to fuck it up.

Working on the next bench over was one of the girls, Kelly, and the attractive curly-haired boy, Nathan, and beyond them was Alisha and Curtis.

The other boy, Gary, was working all on his own, probably because nobody wanted to be threatened to have their throats ripped out.

"Oh man!" Beau looked up to find that Gary was looking angrily down at the hat in his hands. "There's paint on my cap!"

Beau didn't know why he was so angry if he glared any harder at the hat he would scare the paint right off.

He rose suddenly, swiping at kick at his paint bucket and sending it clattering, paint spilling across the pavement. He turned and stomped away, not offering another glance at the others and clearly not caring that they would likely be put in charge of cleaning up the paint he had spilled.

"Prick," she muttered.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Simon grin slightly.

"I'm guessing shoplifting," Nathan was saying to Kelly who was looking very much like she regretted choosing to work with him.

"Don't act like you know me cos you don't," Kelly snapped at him.

"I'm just making conversation," Nathan defended. "This is a chance to network with other young offenders. We should be swapping tips! Brainstorming! Come on, what'd you do?"

Kelly sighed, obviously understanding that if she didn't tell him then he would never leave her alone about it.

"A girl called me a slag so I just got into a fight."

Somehow that didn't surprise Beau at all.

"Was this on the _Jeremy Kyle Show_?" Nathan asked.

"No, it was in Argos."

"You should have got one of those pens and stabbed her in the eye," Nathan told her helpfully.

Beau snorted, catching Simon's gaze and rolling her eyes, making him grin again.

"What about you weird kid?"

Both of them looked up in surprise to find Nathan addressing Simon, an expectant look on his face.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Nathan continued, "but you look like a panty sniffer."

He held his hands up, miming holding a pair, and inhaled deeply.

"I'm not a panty sniffer!" Simon said immediately as if afraid any of them would actually think he was. "I'm not a pervert."

Nathan rolled his eyes, clearly not believing him and Beau felt another rush of sympathy for Simon. That was until he next spoke.

"I tried to burn somebody's house down!"

She turned to look at him in surprise and he quickly averted his eyes.

Okay, so that was two maybe-killers in the group. _Great. _

Beau had just started considering moving to another bench when Nathan turned his attention onto her.

"What about you, Princess?"

There was that nickname again and Beau had no idea where it had come from.

"Nothing," she said immediately, turning to focus intently on the bench as if it were suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. She really did not want to get dragged into this conversation.

"Nothing," Nathan scoffed. "Sure, you just came down to do community service for a bit of fun. Come on, tell me."

She pointedly ignored him, dipping her brush back into her bucket to get more paint.

"I bet it was something delightfully _dirty,_" Nathan continued, obviously trying to get a rise out of her. "You seem like a priss but I bet when it comes right down to it, you're into some dirty shit. Public sex maybe, a bit of voyeurism. Or may-"

_"I got caught breaking into my ex-boyfriend's house, okay!" _She yelled, effectively cutting him off and drawing everyone else's attention as well. She had felt her face go warmer with every word he had spoken until finally, she had decided that telling the truth was likely better than the guesses he was making.

It never ceased to amaze her that she could deal with her awful mother with ease but dealing with others… well, clearly she needed to work on it.

A moment of silence followed in which he stared at her, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Oh," he said. "I see. You're one of those crazy ex-girlfriends who can't let go then. What did y-"

"Is that what you think," Beau demanded, setting her paintbrush down and turning to glare at him "My breaking into his apartment has nothing to do with being a _crazy ex-girlfriend. _I didn't do it because I wanted him to take me back! When he tossed me he didn't return all of my belongings and I wanted them back! That's all."

"Oh," Nathan blinked and for a moment Beau thought that would be the end of it but that stupid, attractive smile stayed on his face. "Did he keep your knickers?" He asked understandingly. "Hey! If he did does that mean that you're not wearing any now?"

He may have been attractive, but he was a real prick.

Before Beau could answer, she saw something out of the corner of her eye and turned to look, her glare automatically shifting into a look of delight.

"_Kitty!" _She squealed, immediately approaching the fluffy black and white cat that had appeared from around the corner of the building.

She heard a snort of laughter from behind her just as she scooped the cat up into her arms, hearing the jingle of the bell of its collar. It wasn't just a stray then.

"_Hello darling," _she cooed, scratching it beneath its chin, delighting in the rumbling purr that began to vibrate from its chest. _"Aren't you precious?" _

A rumbling from overheard made her tilt her head back, curling her nose at the storm clouds accumulating above them.

"What is going on with this weather?" Nathan asked as the others all looked up.

"How did that happen?"

She whipped around to find that Tony had joined them and was pointing at the spilled paint.

"I mean you've been here five minutes. It's painting benches, how did you screw that up? You tell me because I've got no idea." And then he turned, seeing Beau standing there cuddling the cat in her arms. "And you, what do you think you're doing?"

She blinked, looking down at her new friend before looking back up at Tony.

"Giving back to society," she offered. "This cat is part of the community too."

Tony opened his mouth to say something when a huge drop of hail suddenly fell from the sky, crashing into one of the cars parked nearby and crushing the cab under its momentum.

A series of screams echoed from the group and the cat in Beau's arms suddenly leaped free, taking off back around the building.

"What the _fuck!_" Beau stumbled back over to the group as if that would bring some form of safety. Her heart thundered in her chest, fear rushing through her like ice.

"That was my car," Tony said, shocked.

Nathan snorted. "Classic."

Another giant ball of hail came crashing down, crushing a nearby dumpster this time and that was all the group needed. They turned to rush back towards the community center as more hail began to fall around them.

They reached the door of the Community Center and Tony scrambled to get his keys out from his pocket to unlock the door.

"_Why is it locked?" _Beau demanded. Hadn't he just come outside?

They were relatively for now under the awning but Beau doubted it would be much good if one of those giant pieces of hail hit it.

"_Open the fucking door!" _Alisha yelled, the others soon joining in. But Tony's hands were shaking as he cycled through the many keys on the keyring and the wind picked up around them, the rumble of thunder contributing to the chaos.

"_Don't yell at me!" _He roared, whipping around the face them.

It was at that moment that lightning struck the ground at their feet, sending the six of them flying back and sending even Tony sprawling on the ground.

It was a pain unlike anything Beau had ever experienced, coursing through her body and licking at her limbs. It seemed that she hung there for a moment, suspended in the air as the world slowed around her and all that existed was Beau and this pain and the sudden fear that she could be dying.

And then she struck the ground and the world came spinning back into focus.

She was not dead, Beau realized, sitting up slowly, but her limbs were still trembling in the aftermath of _being struck by fucking lightning. _And there was _something else_, almost like an echo of the pain, not hurting exactly but it wasn't pleasant either.

"I feel really weird," Kelly groaned.

"That'll be the lightning," Nathan told her, sitting up as well.

"What the fuck," Beau groaned, burying her face in her hands. trying to still the trembling. "Did we really get struck by lightning?"

It didn't feel real, felt like something you would watch in a movie and hear about happening to _someone else _on the news.

"We should be dead," Simon pointed out.

"A little reassurance might be nice, you know," Nathan said looking at Tony now, who had raised his head to look at them, expression unreadable. "_'You're fine. Looking good.'_"

Beau was inclined to agree with him. This had happened under Tony's charge, so wouldn't he be held liable for it? Even if he wasn't personally worried about them shouldn't he still be checking to make sure they were okay?

"Wanker," Tony muttered, looking at Nathan.

Beau blinked, surprised. She was pretty sure their probation worker wasn't supposed to be calling any of them wankers. Wasn't that like… unprofessional or something?

"Did he just call me a wanker?" Nathan asked, turning to look at Beau for clarification.

She nodded slowly turning to look at Tony again who was slowly rising to his feet.

"Is everyone alright?" He asked finally.

"We could have died, you dick!" Alisha snapped at him, getting to her feet.

The others followed suit, Beau rising slowly, the shaking finally beginning to subside from her limbs.

Tony hadn't answered and was only glaring at Alisha, his expression strange.

"Are you alright?" Kelly asked. "You're acting like a freak."

"Maybe we should call it a day," Tony said, turning away without answering.

Beau couldn't agree more. The last thing she wanted to do right now was go back to painting benches.

Tony opened the door, finding the key easily this time, and stepped inside, heading towards the office without a backward glance at them.

"His concern is so touching," Beau said dryly before pushing past the others to head to the locker room, ready to get the awful orange jumpsuit off. Still, she paused in the doorway and glanced back at the others. "_Are _all of you okay?" She asked.

"_Your concern is so touching_," Nathan echoed, voice rising in pitch to match hers.

Beau snorted, turning away to head into the locker room, immediately regretting even asking at all.

* * *

It was a slight breeze that woke Beau the next morning, sending a chill up her spine. This was not particularly unusual as Beau had fallen asleep the night prior with her window open, in hopes that she could coax in a cool breeze. Her alarm had not gone off yet, she noted without opening her eyes, still half-asleep, and so she rolled over, intent on just going back to sleep.

The first thing she noticed, as she did, was that instead of being greeted by the soft embrace of her pillow she was instead rewarded with the crunching of dead leaves.

The second thing she noticed was that her mattress did not feel quite like a mattress under her but was instead rather damp and uncomfortable.

The third thing she noticed as her eyes shot open was that she was outside and very, _very _naked.

She began to rise slowly, trying to look all around her at once, desperately wanting to make sense of her situation. Naked. Outside. Alone.

_Does not compute._

"_The fuck," _she muttered to herself, her heart rising to somewhere in her throat.

She recognized where she was, though she wasn't sure that made it any better. It was the park not far from her house, the one that Beau came to when her mum was being particularly annoying. Although, Beau had never come here _naked. _

Just what the fuck was going on?

The possibilities ran through her head, each seeming unlikely as the last, and Beau might have spent all day there, trying to figure out what in the hell was going on, but the sound of approaching footsteps made her stiffen, panic causing her brain to short-circuit for a split second.

And then she jolted into action, rising to her feet and running full-tilt into the nearby brush and hiding just in time as a middle-aged woman jogged into view.

As she jogged past, Beau was struck suddenly with the impulse to call out to her and ask if she had any spare clothes. _Anything _at all so that Beau wasn't just… naked in the park. But she was certain that that wouldn't go well (and also mostly sure that being found naked in the park would breach the terms of her ASBO) and so she kept her mouth shut and waited for the woman to disappear once more.

Right, Beau decided. First thing was to figure out how she was going to get home without being seen and then she would figure out how she ended up in this state.

Beau would, in theory, be able to stick to the treeline most of the way back home, and the rest of the way she would be shielded by the back of the residential building. She just had to hope that nobody was peering out the back window as she made a mad dash towards her window, suddenly feeling thankful that the flat was on the bottom floor.

Beau gave one last hopeful scan of the ground around where she had woken up, hoping in vain to find her clothes folded up neatly nearby but, of course, they weren't. What, did she think her luck would start now?

She took off, wincing each time she stepped on a stick or stone with her barefoot, but not caring enough to proceed with caution because each moment she stayed outside felt like she was tempting fate. How long could she stay out here like this without somebody seeing her?

_Hmm, let's not find out, thanks. _

She broke free of the treeline and after that, it was like a full-barrel race towards her window with the hope that even if anyone did happen to look outside all they would see was a blur.

She finally reached her window, blessedly still open, and clamored inside to sprawl across her bed. Without a second thought, she turned and slammed the window shut before turning to face her room, feeling like she had just dodged a bullet.

Her room was exactly as it had been when she had crawled exhaustedly into her bed the night prior. After a day of community service and getting struck by lightning, Beau had been more than ready to sleep for the rest of eternity.

_So what had happened after she fell asleep? _

Had someone come through the window and stolen Beau away into the night? And then… what? Left her naked in the park. And she had not woken up at all during the encounter. That seemed unlikely.

So what then?

_She could have just been sleepwalking._

The explanation hit her suddenly, simple, neat, easy. And it felt like a relief, like a weight off her shoulders that she could write the whole situation off with that. After all, sleepwalking was not the _strangest _thing that could happen to her. She could have gotten struck by lightning.

The discovery of her pajamas in her bed only seemed to support this idea. Because if somebody had kidnapped Beau from her bed, they would hardly hang around the strip her of her clothes _here _right? _Right? _

A quick glance at the talk had Beau springing into action because she was running _very _late and the last thing she needed was to get in trouble with their probation worker. Not today. She could handle it tomorrow but not today.

A quick downwards assessment was all Beau needed to realize that she couldn't even attempt to go without a shower, there was dirt caking her body and as she passed by her bedroom window she saw that her hair was not in any better shape.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck. _She didn't have time for this!

She showered in record time, barely pausing for long enough to rinse soap from her body, before rushing to get ready, tossing her still wet hair into a ponytail and pulling on the first clothes she grabbed from her drawers, jeans and a tank top, before rushing out the door, grabbing a package of Pop Tarts out of the kitchen on her way to sate her rumbling belly.

One easy day, that was all she asked. Just one easy day.

* * *

She jogged most of the way to the community center, cursing the world and all the events that had led up to this morning which was, inarguably, worse than the one prior.

The others, she saw, were all standing outside in front of what looked like fresh graffiti as she jogged up, which was surprising because Beau was at least ten minutes late. And there was Tony, yelling at them, obviously pissed. Something Nathan had said, perhaps?

"_You!" _His eyes caught on Beau as she ran up, panting. "You're late!"

"Yeah," she huffed, placing a hand over her chest, trying to slow her racing heart. "I can explain. I-"

She had spent the whole way to the community center trying to come up with a viable excuse, any excuse that was not _I woke up naked in the park this morning. _But Tony didn't seem interested and cut her off by slapping her half-eaten Pop-Tart out of her other hand.

She turned, watching as her half-eaten breakfast soared through the air before landing in a puddle a few feet away. Her stomach gave a growl of protest and she turned back to Tony, opening her mouth to ask him why the hell he had done that. But he simply stuck out his hand.

"Give me your phone!" He demanded.

"_What? _No!" She stepped back, noticing only then that he seemed to be holding everyone else's phone as well.

"_Give it to me!" _

Beau shrank back, immediately reached into her pocket to wrangle her phone free and handing it over without further argument. This didn't seem like the same man from yesterday and his yelling had sent a chill of fear up Beau's spine.

"Now," Tony said, stepping back to look them all over. "Get inside and get changed!"

None of the others seemed to be interested in arguing and all began to file inside and Beau fell in line, finally getting a good look at the graffiti as she passed.

'**IM GOING TO KILL YOU!' **it read and kill was even underlined three times, as if the author had wanted to _really _get across the passion with which they were going to kill somebody.

Yes, it was certainly looking like that third option after all.

"Is he allowed to take our phones?" Alisha asked as they reached the locker room each of them heading over to his or her own locker.

She had chosen on the other side of a line of lockers and was the only one who had done so, leading to the area feeling more private which Beau was thankful for as it gave her a chance to ignore the others and just rest her forehead against the cool lockers and _breathe. Just breathe. _She felt suddenly like she might cry.

It had been a hard morning after all. Hell, she had woken up _naked in the park. _Anyone would be entitled to a good, long cry after that.

"_You woke up naked in the park?"_

Kelly had rounded the corner to peer at Beau in surprise. Beau raised her head, blinking owlishly at her and wondering how in the _hell _Kelly could know that.

The others had fallen quiet too, all of them clearly listening in and hoping for something juicy.

"W-what?" Beau finally stuttered. _"No!" _She tried to sound indignant, horrified that Kelly would even suggest such a thing, but really she only came across sounding pitiful.

"Did you?" Nathan was peering around the wall of lockers from the other side now, smiling that smile of his. "Well go on then, get changed. You were in the _park _naked, no need to get shy in front of me."

Beau looked helplessly between the two of them, her throat threatening to close up, a sure sign that Beau was definitely about to cry. Still, she shoved it down and, without a word, opened her locker and pulled out her jumpsuit before turning to stomp past Kelly, deciding that she would just go get changed in one of the bathroom stalls instead.

"I think you made her mad," she heard Nathan say to Kelly from behind her.

Twat

* * *

When Beau finally worked up the courage to join the others outside, they were already hard at work. Well, most of them. Alisha had opted instead to lounge across a picnic table, the top half of her jumpsuit shoved down around her waist to reveal only a bikini top.

Without a word, Beau set her bucket down at got to work, pointedly not looking at the others, embarrassment still pricking at her skin.

How had Kelly known, _how the hell had Kelly known? _

She could have seen Beau perhaps, on her mad dash back home this morning. But why hadn't she said something sooner? Why had she waited until everyone was assembled to call Beau out like that? To embarrass her, perhaps? That seemed more like something Alisha would do then Kelly.

Wait, how had Kelly known that she had _woken up _naked in the park. There had been nobody around when Beau had woken up, she would have _seen _them.

She turned to give Kelly a strange look to find the other girl already looked at her, brow furrowed.

"I'm sorry," Kelly said finally. "About what happened in the locker room. I didn't mean to-"

"How did you know?" Beau asked, cutting her off.

Kelly was quiet for a moment before finally shaking her head. "I don't know," she admitted. "It happened after the storm. Did anyone else feel like dead weird after the storm?"

She turned to address the others and Nathan immediately nodded. "I had a strange tingling sensation in my anus," he said.

Beau looked away, shaking her head in exasperation, wondering for a moment if she should tell Kelly about how weird she had felt after the lightning, a weirdness she had chalked up to… well, being struck by lightning.

Out of the corner of her eye, Beau saw that Kelly had turned to look at Simon strangely.

"Something happened," he said quietly, in a manner that suggested he was not at all comfortable sharing this out loud.

"What's that?" Nathan held a hand up to his ear. "Squeak up!"

"Something happened to me," Simon repeated, louder this time.

"Are you a virgin?" Nathan had that shit-eating grin on his face.

"Shut up," Kelly snapped at him before turning to face Simon again. "What was it?"

"It was nothing," Simon looked away now, obviously discouraged.

Beau couldn't help but wonder if his _nothing _was the same kind of _nothing _she had tried to attribute her waking up naked in the park as. Sleepwalking, yeah right.

"Beau?"

She looked up to find Kelly watching her again, expression expectant.

"What?" Beau asked finally, looking away and pursing her lips. "It's nothing. I always wake up naked in the park. What, don't you?"

"Well, if you'd like to wake up naked somewhere else, you're always welcome to- _OW!" _Nathan rubbed his chest where Kelly had hit him, glaring at her. "What was that for? _Jesus!_"

Kelly rolled her eyes, clearly done with his shit by now, before dropping her brush and turning to stalk away without a second glance.

Beau watched her go, thankful that Kelly wouldn't be standing around anymore with her probing questions and her meaningful looks as if she knew more than she let on.

"I think you made her angry," Beau said to Nathan, echoing his words from earlier.

* * *

The decision to break for lunch came unanimously as the day was drawing later and Tony the Probation Worker had not reappeared to collect them.

They may have been young offenders but that didn't mean they deserved to starve.

And so what if they took a little extra time for their lunch break? They had been scrubbing away at that graffiti all morning. The break was well-earned in Nathan's opinion.

And so were a couple of games of foosball in which he was decidedly kicking Curtis' ass.

Nathan didn't even like foosball much really, but any chance he got to show up mister too-cool-for-school athlete and he was going to take it. It also gave Nathan an attempt to show off for the girls, though the chav still had not made a reappearance and the frizzy-haired bird had buggered off to fuck knew where.

Only the brunette seemed to be hanging around a few feet away, sitting on one of the faux leather couches with her shoes kicked off and her knees tucked up under her chin as she had worked her way through two bags of crisps and was currently halfway through a package of Starbursts.

Nathan had been quite dismayed to find that instead of expressing any interest in the intense foosball game happening feet away from her, she had seemed more interested in sorting her Starbursts into their different colors and then, as she ate them neatly folding the wrappers up and setting them aside. As she chewed, her gaze would drift off, clearly caught in her own little world.

Nathan groaned internally. What was the use in showing off if she wasn't even going to pay attention?

"Ha!" Curtis cheered and Nathan looked down to find that while he was distracted, Curtis had cheered a goal on him.

_Focus man! _He needed to win so that he could have bragging rights later. And Nathan would draw that out for as long as he could.

To their left, the weird kid watched with a quiet sort of interest, never saying anything and offering no insight into who he was cheering for. If he even understood how the game worked, that is.

"You know," Nathan said suddenly, deciding to strike up a conversation, "it's a shame more girls don't commit crimes."

"Why is that?" Curtis glanced up from the game to look at Nathan.

"Think about it man, there's only three of us and three of them. That's only a 1:1 ratio at_ least_ and if one of us strikes out but the other two are already taken, then one will have to go without." He said before adding as an afterthought, "Although, seems unlikely that weird kid is gonna score, yeah? So at best that's 2:1 ratio for us. Still not a lot of room for error."

Curtis snorted at that, giving Simon a look that clearly suggested that he agreed with Nathan. The weird kid had no chance.

"There were four of us," Simon said suddenly in a dire tone.

Both Nathan and Curtis turned to look at him strangely and Nathan huffed, shaking his head.

"I'm talking about getting laid," Nathan said to him but Simon just didn't seem to grasp the severity of the situation. With another shake of his head, Nathan turned his attention back to Curtis. "So, how are we gonna do this man?"

Curtis blinked. "Do what?"

"Divide them up," Nathan explained impatiently. "Because the one with all the frizzy hair, I don't see me and her getting it on."

Curtis scoffed. "Why?" he asked. "Because she's beautiful?"

"No," he shook his head quickly. "Cos she'd be way too much effort. She looks high-maintenance. You'd have to treat her really well," he wrinkled his nose in disgust. "But that other one…," he struggled for a moment, trying to come with the name.

"Kelly," Simon supplied helpfully.

"Whatever," Nathan said dismissively. "A couple of Bacardi Breezers, man, I reckon she'll be good to go. 'Course I might need more than a couple myself, but who's counting?" He grinned, before tilting his head towards where Beau sat, clearly oblivious to their conversation. "Now I saw the way she was looking at me yesterday and I gotta tell you, I think I really have a shot. So we'll call the chav a backup and I'll take Princess over there and you can have the other one."

"Yeah, and the girls like, do they have a say in this?" Curtis asked.

"Yes, yes it'll all be consensual," Nathan insisted. "A group of young people doing mindless shit all day? Face it, man, it's going to happen. It's biology… or physics. One of those. So do we have a deal?" He made a big show of spitting in his hand before extending it towards Curtis for him to shake.

The young athlete looked first at Nathan and then at his hand in disgust. "No!"

"Fine," Nathan huffed. "Maybe I'll keep all three for myself then."

Curtis actually laughed at that, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, I see that happening."

"Yeah, you will. Then you'll be sorry you didn't accept. Then who'll be laughing? Me!"

With that he began to walk away, leaving the boys behind and heading over to the couch where Beau was seated, not having noticed yet that Nathan was making his way towards her.

"You don't like the pink ones?" He asked, noticing that there was still a full pile of them and that she was in the process of working her way through the reds.

She looked up at him with a start, seeming surprised to find him standing there. "Oh," she looked down at her sweets before looking up at him again. "They're my favorite," she told him, "so I always save them for last."

She seemed like a pink Starburst kind of girl, Nathan noted, in addition to being a pink Chucks kind of girl and, apparently, a pink underwear kind of girl if the bra strap currently on display was any indication. The collar of her jumpsuit had slid down to reveal it and, almost as if she could feel his gaze on it, she reached up to adjust it.

"You're eating all alone," he pointed out. "Don't want to make conversation? Or have a bit of company?"

She pursed her lips slightly, looking back at her candy again. "You've made it very clear what conversation with you entails," she said.

Nathan scoffed, holding a hand over his heart as if he'd be wounded. "Are you implying that I don't supply _sparkling conversation._"

"Sure," she rolled her eyes. "Want to invite me to wake up naked with you again?"

"Do you want me to?" He asked. "That's a standing offer, by the way. No expiration date. If ever you're interested just let me know."

That got a small snort from her, something he would almost qualify as a laugh and be grinned victoriously before flopping down on the seat next to her.

She said nothing of this and kept her attention on her candy. To his surprise, she wordlessly picked one up and handed it over to him - a pink one, he might add- before continuing to work her way through the red ones.

Curtis and the weird kid were watching, Nathan noted, and so he waggled his brows at them with a huge grin, holding his lone Starburst up like it was some kind of prize.

Yes, he would definitely qualify this interaction as a success.

* * *

The group had migrated to a side hallway, wanting to keep out of the way in case Tony came in through the main doors and saw them lounging around and not doing anything.

Alisha and Curtis were seated across from each other, with Alisha making flirty eyes at Curtis who was clearly into it. Simon had seated himself stiffly on one of the chairs and Nathan was rolling idly back and forth in one of the wheelchairs.

Beau had taken up residence on one of the couches in the hallway, curled up with her head using her arm as a pillow. She was dead tired and desperately in need of caffeine but had spent all of her pocket change to buy food to quell her raging, rumbling stomach.

She could go to sleep right here, just like this, just a little nap to get her through the rest of the day.

"When I was in sixth form, you came to my school."

_Or not. _

She looked up, raising her head to find Alisha addressing Curtis.

"You gave this big talk about athletics and all your medals and that."

"So I'm guessing you're not going to The Olympics," Nathan interjected.

"You were going to go to The Olympics?" Beau asked, genuinely surprised.

The others all turned to look at her and Nathan gave a snort of laughter. "You might be famous, mate," he said to Curtis, "but you're clearly not _that _famous."

"Sorry," Beau offered, looking at Curtis. "I don't follow sports. I'm sure you were really quite good."

"Doesn't seem to matter now, does it?" Nathan asked rhetorically, earning a withering look from Curtis.

"I heard he was dealing crack," Alisha said.

"What?" Curtis shook his head quickly. "I wasn't dealing crack.

"No, no. The papers said it was steroids," Nathan said.

"That stuff'll shrivel your dick," Alisha told him.

"It wasn't steroids," Curtis insisted. "I'm not a cheat. The stuff in the papers was bullshit."

He was clearly upset about this, Beau noted, and she supposed she would be too if she had had a promising career suddenly ruined and apparently seen her name slandered across the paper.

Anyway, Curtis didn't seem like a steroids kind of guy, he was too skinny. All lean and lanky rather than hyped up muscles.

"So what was it?" Alisha prompted.

Curtis sighed. "I got caught with a little bit of coke," he admitted. "I messed up _one time._"

"No one gets community service for possession," Alisha objected.

Curtis scoffed, rolling his eyes. "If it was anyone else, they'd have got a caution. I get 200 hours community service and a two-year ban from athletics. They said cos of my profile they needed to send a message."

He had clearly beat himself up over this many times before and so it didn't help when Nathan finally spoke up.

"You let yourself down," he told him. "You let the kids down. You let your _parents _down."

"_Shut up!" _Curtis snapped, standing up to glare at Nathan. "All I ever did was train. You know _nothing. _I shouldn't even _be _here!" And without he delivered a harsh whack to Nathan's shoulder.

"_Ow!" _Nathan reached up to rub the spot with Curtis had hit him. "You can't hit someone in a wheelchair!"

Beau rolled her eyes, laying her head back on her arm again and closing her eyes but the sound of Nathan wheeling himself closer had her opening them once more.

"What about you?" He asked.

Beau blinked, suddenly aware of everyone looking at her once more. "I already told you," she reminded him.

"Yeah but you never said what your ex stole from you." He settled back into his wheelchair, looking at Beau expectantly. "Come on, regale us with your tale of heartbreak and woe."

She sighed, sitting up in her seat and looking around to find the others all watching her expectantly as well.

"Alright," she said. "So I was living in this house with my ex-boyfriend, Zeke, and our other bandmates, right? Things were going fine, I mean _not great _because if I'm being completely honest Zeke was a bit of a wanker, but things weren't _bad._" This was the first time she had told the story out loud to anyone, besides the time she had tried to explain it to her mum only to find that the woman had been utterly indifferent.

"You were in a band," Nathan asked, leaning towards her. "Bet you were the singer, yeah? What was the band called?"

"_Rage Against The Light_," Beau answered miserably.

The earned a snort of derision from Curtis. "That's an awful band name," he told her.

"Yes, I know," she sighed heavily. "It was Zeke's idea. _Anyway_, so I go out this one night to pick up takeaway for dinner and I come back to find a rubbish bag full of my clothes sitting outside the door! So I go in my purse to get my key to open the door and ask what the hell is going on but my key isn't on my keyring anymore. So I'm thinking this is some kind of stupid joke right and start banging on the door and Zeke opens the door and tells me that he's breaking up with me and that I was being replaced in the band by his new girlfriend. He had kicked me out and hadn't even given me any warning. The bastard had _planned this. _And then he has the nerve to grab the food that _I had bought_ and just took it inside and closed the door!"

Alisha's jaw had dropped and she shook her head, tutting. "You're right," she said. "He is a wanker."

"So by this point, I'm realizing that all of my things are _not _outside. And this time when I start banging on the door I'm yelling at him to give me my instruments. My guitars, my violin, my keyboard. Now, mind, the keyboard is shit but it's still _mine. _And he opens the door and tells me that _the band needs them _and since I'm not in the band anymore they'll be taking them off my hands." She gave a humorless laugh, hiding her face in her hands. "So a few days later I go up to them, polite as you please, and ask for them to give me my shit back. And he says _no! _So I decided that if he's not going to give it back then I'm going to take it back. So I wait until a night when I know they have a gig -a gig I had gotten for them, by the way- and I sneak over to the place. And one of our mates, he always leaves his window unlocked, right, no matter how many times we'd tell him not to. And, it should have been easy, only our next door neighbor had gone outside for a smoke and ended up calling the police! Who, by the way, we're not sympathetic to my situation, especially when Zeke shows up and tells them that he has no idea what I'm talking about."

"Try again," Nathan advised. "Only this time beat the twat over the head with your guitar."

That actually earned a surprised laugh from Beau, the first time she had been able to laugh over the situation. The truth was she missed her instruments desperately, missed playing them and feeling the music flow through her veins. She hadn't even been able to get any lyrics written since what had happened and it made Beau feel… what?

_Lost. _

"Do you want to know what I got done for?" Alisha asked, clearly eager to tell them.

"Not really."

The withering glare she sent in Nathan's direction was enough to have him sighing heavily before gesturing for her to continue.

She smirked, sitting up straighter in her seat, clearly pleased now that all eyes were on her.

"Me and my mate, Chloe, were having cocktails in this bar. And she's hassling me cos she wants to go to this party. Chloe is on one because she thinks Jack is doing Lucy," she began, "_total _slutfuck. So we get in my car, I drive us to the party. We go into one of the rooms, yeah. Jack is not doing Lucy, he's doing _Ellie. _She is a proper slut. Chloe freaks. I'm driving us back into town, Chloe's all like _'Oh, I feel sick.'_ I'm like _'Don't puke in my car. _Do not _puke in my car._' That's when the police pull us over. I'm already banned from driving so I'm like _"Fuck.'_ This cop hands me the breathalyzer and I'm like, _'Do I suck or blow?'_"

And then, as if her story was not already enough, Alisha raised the water bottle in her hands to her lips and began to mimic giving it a blowjob, rubbing her tongue seductively around the rim in a way that had all three boys watching, their mouths agape, unable to look away. Nathan might not have been interested when she had started, but he was certainly interested now.

Alisha was loving the attention, it was clear from the look on her face and Beau suspected that's why she had bothered telling her story at all, for this precise moment.

"It's insane, right? I'm totally working it." Alisha looked back at them, ensuring she still had the boys' undivided attention before repeating the action, which felt like overkill to Beau by this point but who was she to say anything.

Didn't mean she couldn't think it, though.

"Now I don't know if this cop is gay or what, but he tells me I'm four times over my limit. It's bullshit, I didn't even want to go to the party," Alisha continued, crossing her arms over her chest.

Before anyone could say anything in response, the side door at the end of the corridor opened and Kelly came rushing in looking panicked and turned to shut the door behind her before latching the look behind her.

"He's going to kill us!" She said, turning to face the others.

Beau blinked, turning to look at the others who were all looking at Kelly with confused expressions. Except for Nathan who turned his wheelchair to face her before clapping his hands.

"Nice entrance," he told her approvingly. "Very dramatic."

"Who tried to kill you?" Beau stood from her seat, approaching Kelly who was obviously very upset.

"Oh _come on _Princess, you don't believe her, do you?" Nathan scoffed.

Beau ignored him, keeping her gaze set on Kelly whose hands were gripped tightly into fists at her side.

"The social worker!" She told Beau. "He just attacked me!"

Okay, so _that _was a little hard to believe. Tony had been a dick that morning but he had not been a _murderous _dick.

"You _don't _believe me!" Kelly accused, turning to glare at Beau who blinked, taking a step back.

Whether it was true or not, _she _clearly believed it.

"Kelly-" Beau began, only for the other girl to cut her off.

"Something really weird is happening," Kelly turned to address all of them now. "I'm hearing these voices. It's like I can hear what people are thinking!"

"Have you been sniffing glue?" Alisha asked patronizingly.

Nathan and Curtis both laughed but Simon and Beau were giving Kelly strange looks, Beau's brows furrowed as she considered this.

_Kelly had known about what had happened that morning. _

How was she supposed to explain that away? What logic did it make?

"The storm, it's done something to us," Kelly insisted, desperately trying to get the others to believe her.

"If you can hear my thoughts, what am I thinking?" Nathan challenged, rolling closer to her.

She furrowed her brow for a moment, clearly concentrating before scoffing. "Do you think it's bullshit?"

"Of course," Nathan snorted. "You don't need to be a mind reader to know that!"

"Why are you in a wheelchair," Kelly asked him.

"It was the storm," Nathan began pathetically, bringing a look of genuine concern to Kelly's face. "The strange tingling sensation in my anus has spread through my body and now… _I can't feel my legs._"

He began to laugh but quickly stopped when Kelly delivered a sharp kick to his shin. "I'm serious!" She yelled at him.

"Kelly," Beau drew her attention back to her. "What were you saying before Nathan decided to be an idiot?"

"_Hey!"_

"Yeah, what do you mean the social worker tried to kill you?" Curtis asked.

"This does sound like complete shit," Alisha added.

"He is out there and he chased me!"

"Something happened to me too," Simon interrupted, making everyone turn to look at him.

"Did you pop your cherry?" Nathan asked brightly. "We are all very happy for you."

"What do you mean something happened?" Beau asked him, ignoring Nathan.

"Earlier on when we were in the locker room, I turned invisible."

He looked around at them, finding five skeptical expressions staring back at him.

Mind reading? Invisibility? This was all just too much.

"Christ," Beau sat down, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers, wishing suddenly, desperately that she had a bottle of ibuprofen. Or a stiff drink. Or both.

"So, she's psychic, he can turn invisible and you have, what?" Nathan turned to look at Beau. "Spontaneous nudity?"

"I am not a part of this?" She assured him, though she didn't feel entirely sure. A part of her couldn't help but wonder if this explained what had happened that morning.

"Well, this all seems very likely," Nathan turned to face Simon again. "Did anyone witness this miraculous disappearance?"

"You were all there," Simon told them.

"We might have noticed you vanishing into thin air," Alisha sneered.

"You didn't," Simon said. "I was standing right there. You did see me!"

"Alright then," Nathan said, rolling over to him. "Go on, then. Do it. Turn invisible."

The moment that followed was a very awkward one where Simon clenched up, his facing pinching into a very uncomfortable expression. But still, there he stood, very visible.

"My god," Nathan said, expression shifting into one of shock. "He's disappeared."

"Can't you see me?" Simon asked, very nearly smiling. Beau felt sorry for the poor guy.

"No," Nathan shook his head. "You're invisible!"

With that, he tossed his crumpled soda can at Simon, hitting him square on the forehead. "You two are hilarious, really, keep taking that medication!"

With that, he began to roll towards the door but Kelly moved to stop him."Don't," she warned. "He will kill you."

"_Don't!" _he said. "She's telling the truth."

Everyone turned to stare at him now, with Nathan heaving a huge sigh.

"And you know this how? I suppose you're psychic too, now?"

"All this," Curtis began, gesturing around at them. "It's already happened once. I open the door, the probation worker, he killed you." He pointed at Kelly who looked startled. "You were right there. You were _dead. _Everything froze. You were all just standing there. Time went backward!"

"What are you saying?" Alisha asked. "What, you turned back time?"

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Beau buried her face in her hands once more, thinking not for the first time that this was just too much.

Either half of them were mad or they really had developed superpowers. Last Beau checked that only happened in movies and comic books.

"This just keeps getting better and better." Nathan was clearly of a similar mindset. He stood, finally fed up, and started towards the door.

"Everything happened again." Curtis insisted. "Exactly the same. I'm telling you, don't open that door."

Nathan ignored him, unlatching the lock before pushing the door open a crack before freezing, letting out a startled cry of alarm before quickly shutting the door and latching it closed once more.

He whipped around to face them, eyes round with fear. "He's right," Nathan declared. "The probation worker's gone mental!"

At that precise moment, a hand slammed against the small window beside the door and Tony pressed his face up against it, peering in at them before beginning to bang on the door.

Beau let out a scream, standing and stumbling back towards the others, her heart thundering so fast in her chest that she was sure for a moment that it was going to kill her before Tony ever had the chance.

As it turned out, Beau needn't have worried about one of her fellow young offenders trying to kill her. It was really the probation worker she needed to look out for.

_Fuck. _

Nathan hurried towards the others, clearly feeling that there was safety in numbers and he had a point. Tony couldn't kill all of them at once.

"Maybe he's on crystal meth," Alisha suggested. "That stuff makes you crazy. My friend Chloe did it, she nearly shagged her brother. And he's _really ugly._"

"I'd rather him want to shag one of us than want _murder _us," Beau told her.

"The graffiti!" Curtis cried out suddenly, making the others glance at him in confusion. "I'm going to kill you. He wrote it."

"What did I say? I said there was a hidden meaning!" Nathan said though this declaration was followed by a particularly loud bang on the door. "Or not."

"_Great!_" Beau said, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice. "You've solved the mystery! I'm so glad. Should we tell _him _that? Suppose he would leave us alone?"

"We should call the police!" Alisha told them.

"He took our phones, he's got all our phones," Simon reminded her.

The sudden silence made the group look up to find Tony's shadow no longer in the window and the only sounds now where their panicky breathing and Beau's heart pound, pound, pounding in her chest.

"He's stopped," she said.

"Dickhead!" Alisha rounded on Kelly, glaring at her. "Why did you come back? You should have gone for help!"

"What do you know, bitch!" Kelly shouted back, the two of them squaring up, clearly ready for a fight.

"Shut up, you chav!"

"If you call me a chav, I'll kick you so hard in the cunt your mum'll feel it!" Kelly glowered, stepping closer to Alisha so the two of them were face to face.

"Her _mum?"_ Nathan asked incredulously. "How does that work?"

"_Enough!" _It was Beau's turn to shout as she shoved her way between the two girls and glared at one before first turning to glare at the other. "In case either of you has forgotten, he's _trying to kill us. _And I for one have had a bad enough day without adding dying to list. So if you don't mind, can we work out a way to get out of this and _then _you can kick each other in the cunts, yeah?"

A moment of silence followed in which they glowered at each other before finally nodding their heads, a tentative sign of peace between them.

"So," Beau turned to face the boys. "Any ideas, you lot?"

It seemed none of them did until Nathan's face lit up and he pointed down the hallway. "The back way!" He said. "Come on!"

He was already moving, rushing down the hallway with the other's following suit without argument, all of them intent on getting out of this damned community center.

They rounded the corner, heading towards the back door that was lined with windows on either side of the double-doors. Blessedly there was no sign of Tony. As they approached the door, however, Nathan suddenly slipped and landed on his back in what looked suspiciously like-

"Fuck's sake!" he cried, rising to his feet and looking down at himself. "Is that blood? Fuck! Jesus Christ! Get it off me." He began to wipe his hands across his jumpsuit, leaving a smear of bloody handprints behind.

Beau, feeling suddenly as if she might be sick, clapped a hand over her mouth, breathing in sharply through her nose. The smell of blood here was nearly overwhelming, and she followed the trail of blood on the floor leading to one of the lockers.

"_Shit," _she moaned miserably, gesturing to it.

The others, looking equally miserable, gathered around it but nobody moved to open the locker door until finally Curtis took a deep breath and took the plunge, reaching forward to open it.

With a collective gasp, they all took a step back, Beau backing up until she was pressed against one of the windows. She looked away, unable to stand the sight of a very bloody, very dead Gary inside the locker.

He may have been a prick but he didn't deserve to be brutally murdered like this.

"I did wonder what had happened to him.," Nathan said weakly.

"He's going to kill us!" Kelly cried.

"Turn back time," Nathan demanded, turning to Curtis. "Stop _this_ happening!"

"Yeah!" Beau agreed. "Take us back so we don't have to deal with this at all!

"I don't know how it works!"

"That's great, that's really useful!" Nathan shot back snidely.

Curtis turned away, shaking his head, a saw Alisha who was staring at the scene in front of her, clearly horrified.

"Come on," Curtis said. "Don't look at him." He reached down to grab her hand and instantly tensed up, sucking in a breath before looking down at Alisha, eyes wide and desperate.

"I've got to have sex with you right now!" He told her, bearing down on her, despite her sounds of surprise and protest. "You're so beautiful!"

"What the _fuck!" _Beau met Nathan's confused gaze, looking for some confirmation that this was actually happening right now.

"Let's go," Curtis continued, reaching down to begin shoving his jumpsuit down. "Let's do it raw!"

"Get off me, you freak!" Alisha finally managed to shove him away, glaring at him.

"What?" Curtis looked genuinely confused as he reached out to touch Alisha's hand again. Like the last time, the effect was instantaneous. "You're so hot! I'm gonna bone you, I'm gonna shag you senseless!"

She pushed him away again, and Curtis stumbled away, looking around confusedly. "What did I do?"

"You said you were going to shag her," Nathan said. "You were getting your chap out."

"Shut up!"

"It's when you were touching her," Beau pointed out quickly.

Alisha looked down at her hand thoughtfully for a moment before reaching out suddenly to touch Simon's neck. Like Curtis, he tensed up immediately before turning to look at Alisha with those round, desperate eyes It was kind of scary if Beau was being completely honest.

"I'm so hard for you," Simon leered down at her, leaning in as if to kiss her. "I want to rip your clothes off and piss on your tits!"

The others looked as horrified by that as Beau felt and Alisha stepped back, away from Simon, looking as if she might cry.

"What is happening to me?" She demanded.

"You sick bastard!" Nathan said to Simon, seeming almost amused.

Before he could say anything else, however, there was the sound of crashing glass from behind Beau and she was shoved forward, letting loose with a scream befitting of a horror movie that echoed down the halls of the community center and made the others all whip around in shock to see what was happening.

Beau fell forward as Tony stepped in through the broken window and as Beau fell she was suddenly certain that this was it, this was how she was going to die. She had never been so scared in her life.

And then the world shifted.

It was a sudden thing, coming over her quickly and without expectations. One moment she was falling forward, hands thrown out in front of her impulsive, to try to catch herself. And then the next, it was like someone had thrown a very ugly orange polyester blanket over her head.

It was like everything came suddenly screeching into focus, sharper now than it had ever been before. The sounds, the smells.

_Oh God, the smell of blood. _

She landed soundly on all fours, before scrambling out from the orange fabric because Tony was still _right there_, practically radiating killer intent_. _She could smell his sweat, could hear his breaths.

Once free of the orange fabric, Beau was amazed to find the world so much larger than it had been previously, but she had no time to marvel over this and so darted away, her movements quick and elegant as she darted behind Nathan who was closest.

Not to be deterred by the loss of his previous target, Tony rounded on Kelly but she was already ready for him, lashing out to hit him in the side of the head with a paint can.

He hit the ground like a log, leaving the others to look down at him with shock.

"Is he dead?" Kelly asked, putting into the words the question that everyone had been wondering.

"I'm no doctor," Nathan began, "but you see the way the back of his head's caved in like that-"

"_CHAV!" _Tony shot up suddenly, reaching out to grip Kelly's ankle but she was having none of it and proceeded to stomp his head in.

"I'm not a chav!" She yelled.

"That should do it," Nathan said, sounding disgusted.

Beau too was disgusted and took a few steps back, suddenly taking in the fact that yes, she was _much _smaller.

_What the hell? _

She opened her mouth, ready to ask the others what had happened to her but instead all that came out was a pitiful mewl that had the others turning to look down at her.

Beau's eyes, now a bright green instead of the usual brown, widened, and she raised a hand up in front of her face but instead of hand, it was a dainty orange paw instead.

_What the fuuuuuuuck!_

Without a word, Nathan reached down to scoop her up in his arms before straightening up again so the others could get a good look at her.

They all stared and she looked around wildly between them, looking for an explanation.

"You're a cat," Simon told her finally as if she had not figured that out by this point.

Yes, she was a cat, complete with a tail and whiskers and orange tabby fur.

She leveled him with a look that clearly said _really_, not at all impressed with his observation.

She had figured out that she was a cat, what she had not figured out what _why _or _how _or, perhaps the most important question of all, _how the hell she was supposed to change back. _

And yes, now on top of all of that they had to deal with a very dead probation worker.

_Great. _

Very pointedly, Beau looked down at Tony's body, then to Kelly, and back again, her meaning clear.

It was Nathan who put it into words.

"You killed our operation worker!"

"He would have killed us!" Kelly defended.

Somehow, Beau didn't think the police would believe them. They were six young offenders, criminals, and Tony was a fine, upstanding member of society. He had been helping to rehabilitate them.

"We should call the police," Curtis said firmly. "It was self-defense."

"He's right," Nathan agreed. "We show them the dead boy in the locker, they'll do some CSI shit - and figure it out!"

But Kelly had looked up, meeting Beau's haze, obviously reading her thoughts.

"They won't believe us.," Kelly told them finally, clearly agreeing with Beau.

"We just tell them the truth," Curtis insisted. "We stick to our story."

"What's our story?" Kelly scoffed. "That he can turn invisible and you can turn back time? It doesn't matter what we tell them, they'll say we're lying! They'll say we killed them both! No one's gonna believe you, not anymore!"

It seemed as if their futures had been sealed when Simon finally spoke up.

"No body, no crime."

Everyone raised their heads to look at him, silence falling between them as Simon finally raised his chin, clearly confident in this plan.

His confident plan to hide dead bodies. That didn't make Beau feel very good.

"We should bury them under the flyover," Simon told them firmly.

"How do we do that?" Curtis asked. "Someone's gonna see us!"

"We just give them a quick fix!" Nathan said. "Put them in those wheelchairs, wheel them up there, and if anyone sees us, we're just a bunch of young offenders taking a couple of specials for a walk in the sunshine!"

And that, it seemed, was the best solution any of them could come up with. There was just one more problem that needed to be addressed.

She meowed loudly, drawing everyone's attention back to her and reminding them that she was _still _a cat.

_I don't know how to change back! _She thought desperately at Kelly who frowned.

"She says she doesn't know how to change back," she told the others.

"Well, how did you change in the first place?" Nathan asked and she shook her head, a very strange gesture to see from a cat, but the meaning was clear.

_I don't know. _

"Just focus on it," Simon advised, sounding very much like he knew what he was talking about. "Focus on your human self and think about changing."

Well, that sounded fairly straight-forward and as nobody else was offering forth any explanations about the most promising option she had. And Beau had been about to close her eyes to focus when she remembered one very important detail.

_My clothes! _

She turned to look at where they laid in a heap on the ground. Kelly snorted, walking over to collect them, along with Beau's shoes, before looking back to Beau.

"You'll want to try changing back in the locker room," she guessed.

Beau gave a small mewl of agreement before leaping out of Nathan's arms and landing lightly on her paws, marveling for a moment at the amount of grace this body held. Then she was off, trotting down the hallway with Kelly close behind, leading the others to prepare the bodies.

She couldn't think about. Beau just could not think about it. Right now she just needed to worry about changing back and then she would worry about the dead bodies and then… well, she would worry about that later.

But Beau had never been particularly good at _not _thinking and as she entered the locker room the _only _thing she could think about was the fact that their lives might have just been completely ruined.

But, on the bright side, if they did get found out, Beau could potentially just live out the rest of her days as a cat. Find a nice family to take her in while the others all rotted behind bars.

"That's nice of you," Kelly said dryly, setting the clothes down on one of the benches. "I'll leave you alone, yeah?"

And with that, she turned to walk out again, heading to help the others and leaving Beau in the locker room on her own to figure out this whole changing thing on her own.

She stalked back and forth for a moment, thinking about how badly she wanted to be herself again, about how badly she _didn't _want to live out the rest of her days as a cat.

But _did _she want to be herself again? A young offender who was living at home with her twat of a mother and who was about to help bury dead bodies. Was that _really _the person Beau wanted to be?

No, but it wasn't like she had a lot of choices right now, it was either that or she would spend her life as a cat, and then she really _would _be homeless because as much as her mum disliked Beau she hated animals even more.

This wasn't working. She needed to find a different approach to this. And so instead of thinking about how much she wanted to change, she pictured herself in her mind instead, pictured herself as she had looked in the mirror that morning, tired and panicked and confused and miserable, and then she thought about changing, about becoming that person once more.

It was a strange feeling, like a shock through her nervous system. It didn't hurt really but the next thing Beau knew she was suddenly rising to her feet, back to her full height now and without all the fur, thank you.

She looked down at her hands, spreading her fingers out almost as if she were testing them, suddenly grateful to see _actual _fingers instead of paws.

It had worked, she told herself, despite the fact that she had been so scared that it wouldn't,

She got dressed slowly, putting on that horrid orange jumpsuit again before pausing to look at herself in the mirror.

Brown hair, brown eyes, everything as it was supposed to be. She was _Beau, _not a cat.

A cat. She had been a _cat. _

Everything rushed to hit her suddenly, all at once, and before Beau could stop it, a sob tore from her throat and tears fell hot down her cheeks. She leaned against the line of lockers and slid to the ground as she covered her mouth with her hand in an attempt to muffle the sobs.

It was too late though, it seemed because she heard the sound of footsteps approaching and then a now familiar Irish accent calling, "Hello?"

_Oh God, _she thought. _Not him. Anyone but him. _

He would never leave her alone about it. Everyone else was doing what needed to be done and Beau was sitting here crying like a baby.

Nathan peered in cautiously, saw that she was fully dressed and proceeded to come in all the way, looking like he didn't know what to do now that he had found her crying.

To her credit, Beau tried in vain to wipe away the tears and snot but it didn't do much good as more quickly replaced them.

Finally, Nathan settled on dealing with the situation as best he knew how.

"You've never looked sexier," he told her.

Bad jokes.

Still, it earned a surprised laugh from Beau and Nathan seemed to take that as an invitation to sit down across from her.

"You don't have to sit in here with me," she told him immediately.

"Nah," he replied. "If I'm in here it means I'm not out there helping them with the bodies. I told them I was coming to check on you."

Beau snorted, surprised that that had worked at all. "Using me for an excuse?" She asked. "Why am I not surprised."

"Because it's not a very surprising thing for me to do," Nathan replied smartly, earning another laugh.

She wasn't crying anymore at least, but there was still tear tracks staining her face and her eyes were puffy and red, the skin around them splotched and ugly from where she had rubbed at them in vain.

"God," she said, allowing her head to fall back against the locker. "Dead bodies. _Powers. _What the fuck even is my life anymore?"

"On the upside, you're power is cooler than weird kid's. Shapeshifting trumps invisibility every time."

They both snorted at that.

With a sigh, Beau reached up to wipe at her eyes again though this accomplished nothing, before beginning to rise. "Guess we'd better go help."

"Or you could cry some more," Nathan suggested. "And I'll tell them I was comforting you and that way _neither _of us has to go help."

"They wouldn't appreciate the two of us skiving off," Beau pointed out, "And it was your idea."

Nathan sighed before nodding and standing up as well. He took a moment to observe Beau. "If you don't want to look like you've been having a good cry, you might want to wash your face," he told her.

* * *

_Nothing. We say nothing to no one. _

That was all Beau could think about that night and into the next morning. When her alarm finally went off, she reached over wordlessly to hit the snooze, already awake.

She hadn't gotten any sleep at all.

If she kept up like this, it was going to end up killing her, but how in the world could she be expected to sleep at all after having helped bury two bodies the day prior.

It all felt a little too horror movie for her taste and even thinking about it caused her stomach to turn.

_So don't think about it. _

_Nothing. We say nothing to no one. _

And that was the _only _thing she could think the next day when their replacement probation worker lined them up to begin asking questions about Tony and Gary.

_Nothing to no one. Nothing to no one. Nothingnothingnothing. _

They had had a completely normal day yesterday, scrubbing the fresh graffiti off the plywood boards covering the busted windows outside. Tony? No, he wasn't acting strangely. Why? He disappeared.

Wow, how strange. It wasn't like we killed them or anything.

Already, Beau could feel her throat closing up, panic threatening to set in.

"Gary and my colleague, Tony, have both been reported missing," the probation worker, Sally, began. "Their families are very worried about them. Have you seen anything unusual, anything at all?"

Her gaze had settled on Beau, apparently identifying her as the weakest link and… well, who was Beau to argue? Because she was right about that, Beau felt like she was about a step away from crying or throwing up. Or both.

Neither of those would seem very innocent.

To her right, Nathan raised his hand, making Sally look at him in surprise.

"You saw something?"

Beau nearly sighed out loud in relief.

"A few days ago I go into the toilets," Nathan began. "Tony and Gary were in there. They are butt naked, Tony has Gary by his hair, like this, and he's just doing him, doggy style. And Tony is like, '_Who's your daddy? I'm your daddy, I'm Big Daddy. You like that? I'm Daddy Cool!_' So I'm guessing they've run away to continue their illicit homosexual affair. I ask you, in this world of intolerance and prejudice, who are we, who are we to condemn them?"

He looked around at them as if expecting one of them to say something but when none of them did he looked back at Sally, offering her a smile, clearly pleased with himself.

Beau wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

Sally sighed. "Just… get to work," she said finally, waving them away.

"I think we got away with it!"

Curtis rolled his eyes, turning to stare at Nathan as the worked their way down the pavement, collecting trash. "Do you actually believe that - or are you really dumb?"

"I actually believe that. Although," Nathan turned to look at Beau who had hardly spoken a word all day. "You need to work on your poker face, Kitten."

She sighed and nodded slowly. "I'll work on it," she told everyone before pausing and scrunching up her nose slightly, looking at Nathan in confusion. "_Kitten?_"

"You change into a cat," he reminded her. "It fits."

She wasn't sure if she liked it more or less than Princess.

"Speaking of powers," Nathan continued. "I was there. I should have one of these bullshit powers!"

"You can have mine," Kelly offered resentfully. "You want to hear what people are thinking about you?"

"Not so much," Nathan shook his head. "I want something good, something from the A-list."

"Maybe you can fly," Simon suggested.

"He's not going to be able to fly," Kelly assured him, though Beau didn't understand why it wasn't a possibility. How did any of their powers make sense?

"There's always someone that can fly," Nathan said gleefully, crossing over to a raised patch of pavement and climbing atop it. He situated himself at the end before jumping off and…

Promptly hitting the ground,

Beau couldn't help but laugh, reaching up to cover her mouth so that he wouldn't see her smile when he finally got up.

"No," Nathan groaned, standing up and dusting himself off. "That's not it."

"So, what happens now?" Beau asked, looking around at everyone. Was this just what their life was now? Community service and trying to hide their powers and the awful, _awful _thing that they did?

"What if we're meant to be, like, superheroes?" Simon suggested.

Nathan scoffed. "You lot, superheroes? No offense, but in what kind of fucked-up world would that be allowed to happen?"

"He's right," Beau said. "Who the hell are we equipped. I suppose I'd only be able to go after the bad guys who are allergic to cats."

That earned a bit of laughter from the others, except for Simon who had clearly retreated into himself once more.

"Superheroes!" Nathan shook his head. "I love this guy. You prick!"

"What if there are loads of people like us all over town?" Simon defended.

"No, that kind of thing only happens in America," Nathan assured him. "This will fade away. I'm telling you, by this time next week, it'll be back to the same old boring shit."

Beau could only hope that he was right.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**** First, let me apologize for this absolute monster of a chapter. The other's won't be this long I promise!**

**Second, let me introduce you guys to my new fic, _Power Play_! I don't know how much time I'm gonna focus on this fic (probably a lot because I'm Nathan trash and love Robert Sheehan with all of my little heart) but for anyone following _State of Grace, _don't worry. That's still happening and I'm still working to get _Orpheus _done as well. This is just another project that I was really excited about with an oc that I really love. **

**So yeah, I'm excited for this fic and would love to hear what you guys think! As always, if you're interested in seeing updates on my writing or any of the things I make for my fics and ocs, you can follow me on my tumblr at harleyquinnzelz! **


	2. When It Rains

**CHAPTER TWO:**

**When It Rains**

"_So what happens after he climbs up and rescues her?" _

"_She rescues him right back." _

_\- __**Pretty Woman **_(1990)

Of all the situations Beau thought she might have ended up in with her newfound power, _this _was not one of them.

_This _was ridiculous. _This _was embarrassing. _This _only happened in cartoons. _This _was Beau Hart who, even with all of her human intelligence, had gotten herself stuck up a tree.

Literally. No metaphors here. Just poor Beau, stuck up in the tree, meowing miserably as her friends struggled down below to figure out _how _to get up to her so that they could rescue her.

_Friends_ yes, because Beau figured if there was anything in the world that would bond a group of people together, it would be burying a dead body. Or, in their case, burying two.

It had started, Beau supposed, as every other day over the last week had. Waking up after a night of too little sleep and getting ready for community service where she, along with the others, had been instructed to go pick up trash.

_Again. _

It wasn't that Beau didn't like pounding the pavement and picking up other people's rubbish, it was just that… well, she hated it. Especially because they had found some truly disgusting things over the past week (including, but not limited too: a half-full bottle of what Nathan had been convinced was piss, olds diapers, and once even a used condom) and it always seemed that no matter how frequently they were sent to collect rubbish, they next time they went out there would be _even more. _

Then there was the time they had passed somebody walking along and they had just… dropped their water bottle on the ground, despite the fact that they had _clearly _seen the group picking up litter.

Kelly had given them a piece of her mind and Beau was certain that the man wouldn't be making the same mistake twice.

Not for the first time that week, Nathan had spent his morning complaining about his apparent lack of powers. He tended to make light about it, never getting _too serious_, as Beau had learned was usual for him, but she had a feeling that it was _really _bothering him. With good reason. He had been there, he _should _have one.

Beyond that, Beau would wager that it wasn't easy, being a part of the group but being set apart by something so huge. They had powers and he didn't. The difference was clear, defined. And, though Beau knew Nathan would likely never admit if he did or did not feel this way, she still thought it sucked for him just the same.

So, as always, each time Nathan had begun complaining about his lack of powers, Beau had cheerily told him that he likely _did _have a power and that they just needed to figure out what it was.

_They_. As in the whole group. _Together. _

The others very clearly did not have the same sense of team spirit as Beau did.

This morning, the conversation had been interrupted by what was clearly a nude man seemingly passed out at the end of an alleyway, amongst the rubbish.

It was Curtis who had noticed him first, stopping in his tracks and turning to look in that direction with a furrowed brow.

"What is that?" He asked, making the others stop as well and follow the direction of his gaze.

"Oh gross," Beau complained, wrinkling her nose in disgust as they began to approach.

"Friend of yours?" Alisha asked with a smirk, glancing with Beau who scoffed in response.

"I wake up naked in the park _once _and suddenly I'm mates with every nudist we come across?"

Beau had learned her lesson after that first night and had since been sleeping with her window closed, deciding that it was better to be a little too warm at night that to wake up naked somewhere. Luckily, there had been no problems, no accidental changes on Beau's part, but she thought that maybe that was more attributed to fitful sleep than any control exerted on her part. She still had not mastered the change, no matter how many times she practiced. And she _had _practiced, following Simon's advice.

She had managed to successfully change three times since then, each time into the same orange tabby despite suggestions from the others that she try to change into something _else. _It was only ever a cat and Beau was certain that it would only ever be a cat. Better to focus on learning to shift into what she _knew _she could change into rather than things that she potentially couldn't change into at all.

"Is he breathing?" Kelly asked as they got closer to the man who was on his side with his back facing them.

Possibilities flowed through Beau's head, none of them good. This man could be crazy or violent. He could also be dead, and as of late, she had had enough of dead people to last a lifetime thanks. Just the two was enough.

"If he isn't," she muttered, "we're not hiding _this _dead body."

They approached the man cautiously and Beau, wanting to check for anything obviously wrong with him (other than the obvious nudity) stepped around to his front, determinedly avoiding looking at his pelvic area.

He appeared fine, she noted. In fact, if Beau didn't know any better she would even say that he was asleep.

She looked back at the others and shrugged.

"Hey nude guy," Alisha reached out with her trash grabber to poke him in the ass. "You're naked."

He stirred slowly, raising his head from the ground and rolling onto his back to get a good look at them all, unconsciously flashing his groin for all of them to see.

There was a resounding chorus of protest as the group each looked away automatically. Beau shifted the position of her bag of rubbish so that his rather generous… package was blocked from her view.

"_You!" _Nathan cried suddenly, looking at the man with an expression of utmost shock.

The man just appeared confused, looking around at them all until his gaze finally settled on Beau who blinked in surprise, a feeling of unease rising in her chest.

"Uh… "

The man made a sound not dissimilar to a bark before lunging in her direction. Beau gave a pathetic yelp of surprise, dodging out of the way and dropping her trash grabber and the trash bag.

The man did not give up in his pursuit,, coming after her still and so Beau moved through the doors on the grating that separated their half of the alleyway from the next.

Without a second thought, she began to run, fear fueling her movements, and from behind her, she could hear the sounds of the man still giving chase, despite the yells of outrage from her friends.

_WHAT THE FUUUUUCK!_

Why was he chasing _her _of all people, why Beau? He could have chased literally any of the others, and yet he chose to chase her.

She was beginning to think that the universe had it out for her.

The change, as she had learned, happened very abruptly. No horrific morphing into a cat like the movies would have her believe. She was just Beau one moment and then a cat the next, getting tangled in her horrible orange jumpsuit. She managed to free herself in the instant, not even pausing to think about the fact that she had shifted, before the man reached her, and took off again, faster now than her human self.

The man behind her reeked of trash and sweat, she could smell him now, his scent overpowering and cloying her lungs and it only inspired Beau to run _faster. _

She broke free of the alley and turned a sharp right, operating instinctively as she made a beeline towards a nearby tree, leaping up and beginning to climb without really registering _how _she was doing it.

The man had reached the base of the tree now and was staring up at where she had settled on a high branch, her fur still bristling from fear, tail fluffed out to nearly twice its size.

The man was making a whining sound but before he could try to get up to her, as she was certain he was about to attempt to, the sounds of the others approaching seemed to scare him off as he turned to look at the group running towards him before tearing off, disappearing around the edge of a nearby building.

And _that _was how Beau got herself stuck up a tree, scared and miserable and suddenly realizing that she did _not _know how she was going to be getting down.

The others reached the base of the tree and peered up at her before looking around to see where the nude man had gone.

She was pleased to see that Simon had her clothes bundled up in his arms.

"Do you want to tell us who that was," Kelly asked Nathan who seemed especially intent of finding the guy.

He frowned, looking between them all. "He's my mum's… he's… "he paused, clearly struggling. "He's the guy who lives with my mum."

That earned a chorus of laughter from the others though, as Beau was still stuck in the tree, she didn't find it terribly amusing.

Nathan's stepdad was crazy, that was the only explanation.

"Your stepdad has got a massive cock," Alisha told Nathan with a wicked grin.

"_Jesus!" _His expression of disgust was enough to earn another round of laughter from those below. "And he's not my stepdad, alright!"

"Did you see that thing?" Alisha asked Kelly. "That was like monster big." She turned back to Nathan, offering him a look of mock sympathy. "Your mum will hurt."

Nathan immediately threw his hands over his ears, obviously not wanting to hear any more. Beau was inclined to agree. What, had they forgotten she was still up in the tree?

She gave a loud meow, finally catching their attention again as they all tilted their heads back to look up at her.

"Well, what are you doing?" Kelly asked. "Come down."

_I can't, _Beau thought miserably. _I'm stuck. _

That earned a snort of amusement from Kelly. "She says she's stuck," she told the others.

That earned another round of laughter, one that Nathan joined in this time.

"Poor Kitten," he said. "How did you even manage that?"

The only response that he got was a loud hiss from Beau.

"We should probably get her down," Simon, who Beau was pleased to see, had not joined in on the laughter suggested.

Curtis moved forward to attempt to get her down but Nathan pushed him back, shaking his head.

"I've got it, man," he told him. No doubt an attempt for Nathan to get into Beau's good graces, in the hopes of getting into her pants.

From the way Kelly rolled her eyes, Beau was almost certain that that was exactly what it was.

"Don't worry," Nathan told her consolingly. "I'll rescue you."

Beau didn't feel too reassured though because it looked like Nathan was having some trouble of his own climbing the tree. Yet somehow he managed to make it to where Beau was and reached out towards her with one arm while holding himself up precariously with the other.

This would probably not end well.

Still, she allowed him to wrap an arm around her and pull her against his chest before he began to climb down again.

And that is when it went all wrong.

Nathan, now with one less hand to hold himself up, lost his grip against the bark of the tree.

"_Oh fuck!" _He cried, trying in vain to catch himself as he began to tip backward. "I'm falling! Somebody catch me!"

_Oh shit!_

Not a single person moved to even try to catch them (in fact Beau was certain she saw them all take a collective step _back_) and so Nathan hit the ground hard, knocking his breath from his chest.

Beau, however, was perfectly okay, still safe against Nathan's chest.

She stood, leaning to peer down at Nathan's face worriedly.

"Ow," he wheezed, opening his eyes to stare up at her. "That fucking hurt."

Well yes, _obviously. _He had fallen from a tree.

Looking pointedly at Simon who was still holding her clothes, Beau started back towards the alleyway where this whole thing had started, wanting very badly to be back in her own, human skin.

"What, no thank you?" Nathan called as she padded away, the other's trailing after her.

Beau wasn't really looking forward to changing back in the alley but she thought it was probably better to do it here than wait until they got back to the community center.

A few minutes later, after Simon had left her clothes in the alley for her to change into, Beau stepped out once more, fully dressed and pushing her hair out of her face with a huff.

"I could have died!" Nathan said to her immediately.

Beau scoffed, rolling her eyes. "You fell like five feet. You wouldn't have died." Though she was absolutely certain of this, she couldn't help but give him a once over, pursing her lips in concern. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Nathan waved her off, rubbing at his back. "Hurts like a bitch though."

"Well… thanks." She told him awkwardly. It had been an embarrassing situation and the others laughing at her had not helped. "So uh… why the hell was your stepdad chasing me like a nutter?"

"He's not my stepdad!" Nathan insisted.

Well, that was hardly the point.

"He's obviously a pervert," Alisha said. "Lying around naked and then chasing after some girl."

"He could be a rapist," Kelly suggested. "There's loads of 'em 'round here."

"Well as comforting as those two thoughts are," Beau began. "I think he might have just gone mad. Did you hear him? It was almost like he was barking at me."

"Maybe he's a werewolf," Simon said suddenly, shrinking under the blank looks that the others gave him.

"Twat," Nathan huffed in his direction, shaking his head.

"What, just because he was barking at me?" Beau blinked. "He was kind of missing some key elements of werewolves. You know… fur, claws, fangs."

Beau liked Simon, she really did. But sometimes his ideas were… well, kind of out there.

"It's what happens in films," Simon insisted. "You turn into a werewolf, you kill someone and then you wake up somewhere naked. Like a zoo."

"And then you chase some poor innocent girl up a tree?" Beau shook her head. "And why me anyway? He could have chased any one of you lot."

"Maybe he liked you," Curtis suggested, earning an eye-roll.

"He's not a werewolf," Nathan interjected. "Okay? This guy is such a pussy he needs my mum to open jars for him. If he was a werewolf he'd be able to open up a jar of peanut butter for himself."

"Anyway, there's another problem. He saw me change. If he wasn't mad before, just seeing that might make him go mad." Beau continued.

"I'd like to see you change," Nathan said, not at all helpfully. He flinched away with a cry of pain when Kelly delivered a sharp punch to his shoulder.

"I'm serious," Beau continued urgently. "We're not supposed to be drawing attention to ourselves. Well if people find out I can turn into a cat that draws a lot of attention. Nathan,"

"What if _he _was messed up by the storm too?" Kelly suggested, catching everyone by surprise.

He had been acting strangely.

"That's bollocks," Nathan said. "What are the chances?"

"Either way," Beau told them, "we need to make sure he keeps quiet." She looked at Nathan hopefully. "Can you make sure he stays quiet?"

He glowered, clearly not liking the fact that it was falling onto his shoulders. _Not _that there was really another option. Nathan was the only one who knew the guy.

"_Fine!" _He groaned. "You're lucky."

With a flutter in her chest, Beau offered him a warm smile. She didn't _feel _lucky, but she definitely felt something.

* * *

"Talk to them," Sally encouraged, gesturing to the group of senior citizens socializing behind her. "Make sure everyone's having a good time.

The group remained standing, looking at the group of old people with frowns on their faces. The meaning was clear of course, they would all rather be anywhere but here.

"_Move!" _Sally snapped at them finally. There was a collective sigh from the group as they each moved to follow their instructions.

Beau looked around unsurely, trying to decide which senior citizen to approach and what she would even say to them. The truth was that Beau had never really been around old people unless she counted her next door neighbor, Miss Edgecombe next door. She hardly counted in Beau's opinion though as the woman was only in her early 60s.

These people made Miss Edgecombe look young and lively and Beau could only imagine what they were like. Old and crotchety perhaps? Grumpy and resentful? Judgemental.

Self-consciously, Beau reached to tug on the hem of her shorts, trying to make it appear longer. Sally had graciously instructed them to change back into their normal clothes, likely suspecting that the old people would not take well to having young offenders amongst them. That morning she had just grabbed clothes at random from her drawers and had ended up with a pretty standard outfit, shorts and a loose red jumper. A _Beau Hart Classic. _Beau owned a lot of shorts and she owned a lot of jumpers and she had thought nothing of it as she had gotten dressed but now… well, she just really hoped that none of these old people tried to say anything.

Unsure of what else to do, Beau began to collect rubbish that had been left on tables even though she had spent her morning collecting garbage and didn't really want to do it anymore.

_Just get through it, _Beau thought, _and then go home. _

She glanced around to find out what the others were doing to help out but stopped when she saw Nathan chatting up a very pretty blonde. They had been doing this for _five minutes. _How had he already found a girl to flirt with?

Beau looked away quickly, choosing instead to hyper-focus on the task at hand. It wasn't like she _cared. _Why would she? He was just _stupid Nathan. _

Okay, so yes, maybe Beau had started to develop a small crush on Nathan. _Small._ Tiny. Practically infinitesimal. And Kelly loved to fuck with her about it.

Even now she could practically _feel _Kelly looking at her with a smirk and a quick glance upwards was enough to confirm this.

She had not even meant for Kelly to find out and, to Kelly's credit, she had not _purposefully _read Beau's mind. She was still trying to get control of her power just like all the others. It had been an accident, Kelly had just so happened to read Beau's mind at precisely the wrong time.

It had taken only one glance at Kelly's expression for Beau to realize what had happened. Kelly had kept her mouth shut about it though, thankfully. If the others found out they would never let her live it down. And Nathan would be _unbearable _if he knew.

It was just a small thing, barely there, and Beau never planned to act on it. She had learned her lesson after all.

With a sigh she started towards the nearby rubbish bin to dispose of the small mountain of trash she had collected in her hands before turning to scan the room, looking for any more.

Instead, the sight of something else made her stop, her heart jolting in her chest. How had she never noticed _that? _

Immediately she made a beeline for it, forgetting for a moment that she was meant to be helping with the seniors and instead, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that there was a piano, _a goddamn piano. _

This definitely had not been out here before, and the only thing Beau could figure was that it had been pulled out of storage for some reason.

The upright piano was old, but beautiful and obviously well taken care of, and Beau was quite surprised to see that it was a Bechstein which she thought was strange for a community center to have. A piano, fine. _Sure. _But a _Bechstein_? It seemed too nice to just sit around the community center.

"I donated that."

Beau looked up with a start to find that an old lady had approached her and was smiling softly.

"Oh… " Beau began, not quite sure what to say in response.

"I can't play anymore because of my arthritis," the woman continued resentfully. "None of my children or grandchildren can play and I couldn't stand the thought of it just sitting around so I thought I would donate it to the community center. Do you play, young lady?"

Beau frowned, wanting to reach out and give the woman a comforting pat on her shoulder. What she wanted to say was that she wasn't able to play either, right now, despite how badly she wanted to. But instead, Beau just nodded.

"I do."

The old lady looked delighted. "Would you mind playing now?" she asked. "I don't mean to be so forward but it's been so long since I've heard music that didn't come from the radio."

_She wanted her to play? _Here? Now? With no prior warning?

Beau opened her mouth immediately to tell her no, she couldn't possibly, sorry to disappoint but another voice cut her off.

"I didn't know you could play music."

Sally was standing there, smiling at Beau in a friendly manner. She could be as friendly as she wanted, Beau thought, but Beau still couldn't relax around her. Not since she had assembled Beau and her friends and questioned them about Tony and Gary.

"Um… well, yeah." Beau rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly.

"Louise was kind enough to donate her piano to the center," Sally continued. "You should play something. I'm sure everyone would really enjoy it."

It seemed Beau was not getting much of a choice here. _Thanks, Sally for backing me into a corner.  
_

"I wouldn't even know what to play," Beau said, one last-ditch effort to get out of it but the old lady, Louise, wasn't having it.

"Anything, dear," she said. "Anything at all."

_Fuck. _

Seeing the look of surrender on Beau's face, Sally smiled. "I'll go turn off the music," she said, before turning to go.

For a split second, Beau considered turning and running but Louise was looking up at her so hopefully that Beau knew there was no chance that she could do that. She was just too _soft. _Too nice and the thought of upsetting this sweet little old lady made her feel sick.

A moment later the music playing shut off, causing a stir of confusion amongst the old people who began to look around to figure out what was going on. Sally stood by the CD player, looking out over the crowd calmly.

"Beau is going to play for everyone!" Sally told them all with a smile, gesturing in her direction.

Never had Beau ever disliked a person more than she disliked Sally at that moment.

Heads turned and Beau's eyes went wide. Oh God, everyone was staring at her. _Nathan _was staring at her. She could _feel _her face going red.

_There is a door right there. _

She could run for it, turn into a cat, and spend the rest of her days like that which, strangely, sounded much more inviting than whatever _this _was.

Her friends were never going to let her hear the end of this, were they?

_Fuck! _Why did shit like this always happen to her?

She took a deep breath and turned away quickly, trying to calm her racing heart. Why was she so nervous anyway? It wasn't like she hadn't performed in front of crowds of strangers before. But she had always had warnings before, had been able to prepare.

And there hadn't been _at least _four people who she knew were practically guaranteed to make fun of her in the crowd then.

_Simon wouldn't make fun of her. _

That didn't make it better, and this was perhaps the most tempted Beau had felt so far to run out the door and never look back. She cast a glance downwards at her pink converse, wondering why it seemed like her lucky shoes weren't _actually _bringing her any luck.

_Maybe they had lost their mojo. _

Or maybe, Beau was just too far gone for a little good luck to help at this point.

_She still didn't know what the fuck she was going to sing. _

What song did she even know by heart that a room of old people would know? Would they even _care _if they knew the song?

And then, underneath all the nervous, anxious energy there was the pure and simple desire to just _play the fucking piano. _How long had it been now since Beau had played? To answer that she just needed to count how long it had been since Zeke had dumped her and kept her precious instruments to himself.

God, she missed them, and she missed playing. It felt like Beau had lost a part of herself, left it behind along with her instruments. And perhaps that was the real driving force that led her to finally sit down on the piano bench and look longingly down at the gleaming white keys.

She had to give Louise credit, the old bird really had taken good care of the piano.

_What to sing, what to sing... _

She was painfully aware of eyes still on her and the pressure was building and so Beau brought her hands down, beginning to play the very first thing that came to mind. The song was familiar, comforting, and so Beau focused on that instead of all the people and the fact that her friends were guaranteed to say something later. She just let herself play and that was it, that was all that mattered.

_Singin' In The Rain _had been Beau's favorite movie since she was very small when she had caught it playing on the television one night. And so, when Beau had begun to learn to play music she had been determined to learn the songs.

So when the chords for the titular song of the movie began to flow from the tips of her fingers, the music was as familiar to Beau as any of the songs she had ever written herself.

When she finally finished, Beau took a deep breath, her heart thundering in her chest. _God, _she had missed this and suddenly Zeke's thievery seemed so much more personal. Of all the things that he could have taken, it had to be the instruments, which were as much a part of Beau's identity as her name.

_She hated him. _

The sudden revelation hit her like a freight train and she blinked, startled by the sound of polite applause from behind her, remember where she was and what she had been doing.

"That was lovely," Louise told her kindly.

It was, but it was also agonizing. She wanted her instruments back, she wanted _herself _back. And playing the piano had been nice but it _wasn't enough. _It was like giving a man dying of thirst only a small sip.

_It wasn't fucking fair. _And she had goddamn Zeke with his goddamn smirk to thank for that.

"Thank you," Beau said to the woman politely, standing up and stepping away from the piano.

She turned, intent on resuming cleaning up the old people's trash but she caught Nathan's eye and her face immediately burned red and so instead she turned and rushed from the room, deciding instead that she would go to the kitchen and help make tea for the seniors instead.

_At least he hadn't been talking to that blonde anymore. _

_Not _that it mattered, of course. Beau didn't care and-

"Beau?"

She turned to see that Sally had followed her and was offering Beau a friendly sort of smile.

Beau stopped in her tracks, looking at the other woman suspiciously. It had been Sally who had encouraged Beau to play just now, effectively backing her into a corner and, whether she had meant to or not, Sally was the one to blame for the endless teasing Beau would likely now have to endure from the others.

Beau did _not_ smile back.

"You played really well," Sally continued, not deterred it seemed.

"Thanks," Beau muttered, looking away again. She just wanted to escape to the kitchen where she could _hopefully _be alone.

"I was hoping that we could talk," Sally took a step closer and Beau instinctively took a step back, looking at the probation worker with a furrowed brow, immediately suspicious.

When Beau didn't respond, Sally just pressed on, determined it seemed. Beau had a bad feeling that she knew exactly where this was going.

_We say nothing to no one. _

"It's just when I gathered all of you together to ask about Tony and Gary, it seemed like you might have had something to say."

_We say nothing to no one. Nothingnothingnothing. _

"I didn't," Beau told her shortly, feeling her heart drop.

God, she would have to deal with this alone now. The others were still helping with the old people, blissfully unaware that Beau was alone, getting questioned by Sally. Sally must have correctly assumed that she would be most likely to get answers from Beau and suddenly Beau realized that the whole thing with Sally encouraging her to play had been an attempt for the probation worker to get on her good side.

Unlucky for her, it had had the opposite effect and Beau had had a week to harden her resolve.

_Nothing to no one. _

"Oh," Sally blinked, before glancing over her shoulder to make sure nobody was around before taking a step towards the others. "Beau if something happened, I can't help to keep you safe. Just tell me what the others did and-"

"_We,_" Beau emphasized, "didn't do anything. And I have nothing to say to you."

_Nothingnothingnothing. _

Beau turned on her heel and continued down the hallway towards the kitchen, leaving Sally behind. This whole exchange had left a bad taste in her mouth and she knew immediately that she had to tell the others.

_This day just gets better and better._

* * *

Beau was waiting for the others when they finally came into the locker room to retrieve their things.

Nathan was the first one in, the others following close behind, and as soon as he saw her, that stupid grin of his stretched across his face.

"Hey there, _High School Musical. _Nice-"

"Enough," Beau cut him off. "Sally was asking me questions about Tony and Gary. Trying to get me to talk."

"_What?" _It was Curtis who spoke, looking at Beau with a frown. "What did you say?"

"Well obviously I told her the truth," Beau scoffed sarcastically. "Honestly, are you mental? I didn't say anything."

Curtis didn't look entirely like he believed her and Beau rolled her eyes. "Look, I just thought I should warn you. She might start asking everyone questions individually."

That didn't seem to sit well with the others who all seemed to realize the same thing. If Sally was asking them questions then it meant she suspected more than she let on. And that was dangerous.

Feeling that the others were sufficiently warned, Beau rounded the corner of the line of lockers to retrieve her bag, feeling that if she hung around any longer then the subject would return back to her impromptu performance.

Sure enough, a moment later, Nathan poked his head around the corner, smirking at her.

"So, do you give autographs or… ?"

"No," Beau replied simply, sliding the strap of her bag over her shoulder. "And I don't want groupies either, unfortunately for you."

"Aw Kitten," he began with a pout. "What's got you in a bad mood?"

"_Someone knows." _

Curtis' panicked voice had both of them coming back around the lockers, looking at him with concern. He was staring at the inside of his locker where a flyer had been stuck with '**I KNOW WHAT YOU DID' **written clear as day.

He turned to look at all of them, eyes round with alarm. "They know we killed our probation worker."

"_Shhhh,_" Beau hissed. "Would you like to say it louder? I think there might be someone in America who didn't hear you."

Curtis didn't seem at all phased, instead looking at Nathan with a glare. "Is this a wind up? Is this you?"

"If I was trying to wind you up, I think I'd be more creative. _'I know what film you saw last summer_.'"

"This isn't funny!" Alisha snapped.

"If I was trying to freak you out, I would've dug up the body and stuck that in your locker."

The note _did _seem too tame to have come from Nathan.

"If it wasn't him, who was it?" Curtis asked, turning to address all of them once more.

"The probation worker," Simon suggested immediately. "She _just _questioned Beau. She obviously suspects something."

Beau considered this for a moment, staring at the note with pursed lips. "But why be so vague?" She asked finally. "She suspects something, yes, but now she knows that I know she suspects us. So why be so vague? Why not come right out and say it? In fact, why put the note in your locker at all. Surely she would know that I'd tell you lot what happened, _especially _if we really did do something wrong."

"So you're saying you don't think it's her?" Alisha asked.

"That's what I'm saying."

"They could be talking about anything," Nathan insisted. "It was in your locker."

"This was meant for all of us," Curtis argued.

"If they knew anything, they wouldn't be dicking around, sticking notes in lockers," Nathan told him.

Beau nodded quickly in agreement. "That's right. Whether it was Sally or not, that note in your locker means they've got nothing against us. _If _they did, we'd be in prison by now, I reckon."

"I'm guessing it's about some other totally unrelated shit _you've _done," Nathan added. "Now, if we're done freaking out over nothing, there's somewhere I need to be."

He started out of the locker room, sliding his hands into his pockets as he went and as he left Beau suddenly remembered one more problem that needed to be addressed.

She quickly went to follow him, smiling apologetically at Curtis as she passed. She hadn't meant to make it seem like she was ganging up against him.

Out in the hallway, Beau ran to catch up with Nathan who looked at her in surprise.

"Can't get enough of me, Kitten?" He asked slyly, waggling her brows at her.

"You wish," she shook her head quickly. "I just wanted to remind you about this morning."

"You mean when I saved you from the tree?" God, how she wanted to wipe that smirk from his face.

"I mean when your stepdad was chasing me and saw me shift."

"_He's not my stepdad!" _Nathan said quickly.

"Whatever," she rolled her eyes in response. "Look just… talk to him, please. Make him promise not to tell."

She looked up at him with those big doe eyes of hers, lower lip poking out unconsciously into what could only be described as a pout.

"I already told you I would," Nathan told her grudgingly.

She offered him a small smile. "Thank you, Nathan."

"Sure," he shrugged her off. "Maybe next time you can give me a private concert."

She snorted slightly, caught off guard by this comment. Nathan gave her a smile.

"Anyway," Beau looked away, suddenly feeling awkward. "I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"

She didn't want for a response before hurrying ahead of him, out of the building.

"Beau!"

She turned, surprised to find Simon hurrying after her. He stopped next to her, looking sheepish before offering her a small, shy smile.

"I thought your playing was really good," he told her finally.

Beau gave him a small smile back. "Thanks."

She liked Simon. He was nice and friendly and didn't go out of his way to make fun of people. That made him okay in Beau's book.

"You looked excited to see the piano, earlier," he continued, falling into step beside her. "Is it because your ex-boyfriend took your keyboard?"

She shrugged slightly, not making eye contact even though that was _exactly _why she had been so excited.

"I just love music," she said finally. "But I haven't been able to play in weeks. It's like I had forgotten how much I love it."

That wasn't entirely accurate. Beau hadn't _forgotten_, she had just had other things on her mind. But seeing the piano had reminded her and an ache had settled somewhere in Beau's chest.

"Of course, I didn't necessarily want to play in front of everyone," she shrugged slightly in a "what can you do" kind of way. "I'll never hear the end of it, now."

"I think your old boyfriend is awful for taking them," Simon said. "Your instruments, I mean."

"I hate him." The words sounded so odd spoken out loud like that, so foreign in her mouth. But that didn't make the statement less true. She _did _hate him but had only just realized it.

"Then why did you date him?" Simon asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

Beau looked at him for a moment, unsure how to answer because every response she could think of sounded pathetic. _Because he had liked her. Because he had wanted her. Because she had been lonely. _

"I don't know," she said finally, looking away. Shame burned hot down her spine. She _knew _why she was just too ashamed to admit it. But Simon didn't push it any further and Beau was thankful for that. And so the two of them walked in companionable silence until they reached Beau's turn and she gave him a small wave.

It was nice, she thought. Simon was nice, and Beau was glad for it because she didn't have many friends these days so it was nice to have one that felt as genuine as Simon.

* * *

The next day was back to their usual monotonous task, this time sweeping the floor from the day before when the seniors had had their party.

Beau pushed her broom, humming along to the music blasting through her earbuds. She had thought ahead, deciding she would rather listen to music than take any possible ribbing about the day before from the others. Besides, it was always a good time to listen to Blondie.

Seriously, Beau didn't think she could come up with a situation where she _wouldn't _want to listen to _Call Me. _

A phone suddenly being thrust into her face made her look up with a start to find Nathan standing there, saying something that she couldn't hear.

Beau reached up, tugging an earbud free. "_What?" _

Nathan sighed impatiently before gesturing to the phone again. "I said look at this. It's proof!"

Against her better judgment, Beau looked back at the phone, face scrunching up in confusion.

"Uh… what am I looking at exactly?"

He sighed again, rolling his eyes. "Cock, anus, ball-sack," he said, pointing at each item in turn.

"Oh, _gross!_" She immediately looked away, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Evidence of _what_ exactly, Nathan?"

"Evidence so that my mum will believe me about her… that _guy!_"

Beau blinked, making the mistake of looking at the phone once more before quickly settling her gaze on Nathan. "Okay. Did you get a chance to talk to him?"

Nathan opened his mouth to reply before seeming to think better of it and closing it, giving Beau all the answer that she needed.

"_Nathan!" _

"Look," he said quickly. "It's fine! The government hasn't come to scoop you up for being a cat girl, right? So even if he did say something, they probably thought he was crazy."

"You said you would!"

The others were all watching this scene unfold, clearly enjoying it as Nathan floundered to find an excuse.

"He wasn't home," Nathan told her lamely.

That was apparently the wrong thing to say based on Beau's glare.

"That's fine for _you _to say. If _we_ get carted off to some lab to be tested, it's not like they'll have a reason to want _you_."

The words came out harsher than Beau had originally planned and all of the others looked surprised.

Nathan was the quickest to recover however and gestured back to the phone, "You can come with me later to confront him, yeah? And then you can say something to him yourself!" He turned to look at the others, obviously ready to rally them to his cause. "Look, this guy is living with my mum. We've got to do something. _You!" _He pointed to Kelly. "Can you get me a gun?"

"You're planning on shooting him?" Beau asked incredulously.

Kelly scoffed. "There's no way I'm getting a dickhead like you a gun." She told him, her tone having a note of finality to it.

"You can get a gun off the internet," Simon suggested before shrinking under the glares that he received from Kelly and Beau.

"_Shooting _him is _not _a solution. That will definitely draw attention," Beau told Nathan matter-of-factly.

"What if we go round there tonight, talk to him?" Nathan suggested. "We'll be mature and polite, yeah? Then we'll just tell him to fuck off."

"What if he says no?" Curtis asked.

"I don't know," Nathan sighed. "We'll improvise. So, who's with me?"

He was met only with silence as he looked around at them expectantly. Nobody said a thing and Beau even had to avert her gaze, feeling bad. But what did Nathan expect? The guy had chased her up a tree the last time he had seen her and Beau was not so eager to have a repeat performance. She didn't want to be near the guy again like… ever.

" It's like that, is it?" Nathan asked with a huff. "So much for being united by a horrific, life-changing, shared experience. Last week? You know? The_ situation._" When nobody said anything to that, he rolled his eyes. "_We killed our probation worker!" _

The reaction was instantaneous with the group looking around worriedly to make sure nobody had been around to hear that. The way Beau saw it, they didn't need to worry about her giving them away. They were doing a fine job trying to get them caught on their own.

"God, you're such a dickhead," Curtis snapped at him.

"That counts for nothing?" Nathan continued, acting as if Curtis hadn't said anything.

"Nathan," Beau sighed, making him look at her hopefully. "I would I just… well, he chased me. _While he was naked!_ I don't really want to go anywhere near him, you know?"

She gave him an apologetic look but he only sighed disgustedly before looking away, only succeeding in making her feel worse.

"I'll come with you," Simon offered. "You know if you want someone to go with you. I'll come."

Nathan looked at him oddly for a moment before shaking his head. "I'm not being funny but, me and you, buddying up, _kicking ass!_ I'm just not feeling it, but, hey, lovely thought. Cheers." He gave Simon a pat on the shoulder before walking away.

Beau frowned, watching him go. First, she had snapped at him and then she hadn't even been willing to help him.

_He had promised to make sure this Jeremy guy didn't talk. _

And how was that Nathan's responsibility? And was it _really _fair to expect him to go into this alone? And anyway-

"Stop that," Kelly snapped suddenly in Beau's direction, making her look at the other girl, surprised.

"What?"

"You're minds going like a mile a minute. It's _exhausting. _Don't feel bad for that prick."

"Oh," Beau blinked. "Right. Sorry."

She ducked her head, sliding her earbuds back in and tried hard not to think about it. _Not _that that was particularly effective so either Kelly wasn't say anything or she wasn't listening in anymore.

* * *

At the end of the day, Beau was more than happy to get changed out of her jumpsuit and leave.

She entered the locker room with Kelly and Alisha and headed around to the locker to begin getting dressed.

There was silence until Alisha finally spoke up.

"Did that hurt?"

Beau blinked, pulling her shirt on before peering around the line of lockers to see what they were talking about. "Did what hurt?"

Alisha and Kelly, both only in their underwear, looked up at Beau and Kelly turned slightly to show Beau the bow she had tattooed just above the line of her panties.

"It hurt like a bastard," she told them. "I only got it done cos my fiancee wanted it."

Beau blinked, tilting her head slightly as she examined the tattoo before giggling slightly, making the other two look at her in confusion.

"Sorry," Beau said quickly. "It's just… you have a bow tattoo and my name is Beau. Bit ironic, yeah?"

That got a snort of laughter from both the girls and Beau grinned before heading back to her locker to pull her shorts on.

"I didn't know you were engaged, Kelly," she called over.

"I was," Kelly replied. "Not anymore."

"What happened?" Alisha asked.

Kelly sighed heavily." I could hear what he was thinking, yeah? And he wasn't exactly being romantic."

A moment of silence followed and finally Beau called consolingly over the lockers, "If you want you can tell everyone that you got the tattoo because of me."

That earned her another round of light laughter that made her smile as she pulled her shoes on before grabbing her bag and rounding the corner.

"Have you been with anyone since you could do your thing?" Kelly asked Alisha who shook her head quickly as the three of them started towards the locker room doors.

"No, not full on. I've tried it out, just for a second. They were proper horny. One was quite fit, actually. What about you, Beau?"

Beau blinked, surprised to have been dragged into this segment of the conversation.

"What about me?"

"Have you been with anyone? Since you got your power, I mean. Were you afraid you'd like… turn into a cat in the middle of getting shagged?"

"Thanks, Alisha, I really appreciate that mental image," Beau sighed before shaking her head. "No, I haven't. Well I don't exactly have a boyfriend, do I?"

Alisha laughed. "You don't need them to be your boyfriend to shag someone."

Of course, Beau knew that, but she had never been the type to be comfortable going out and hooking up with random guys. It was all well and good, but Beau wanted to be comfortable with a person before hopping into bed with them.

"It doesn't help that she likes Nathan," Kelly told Alisha using a loud stage whisper.

"_What?" _Alisha's jaw dropped and she turned to look at Beau with a mix of shock and delight. No doubt she planned to use this information against Beau.

"_Kelly!" _Beau sent the other girl a half-hearted glare, face heating up in embarrassment.

"Why?" Alisha asked. "He's _such _a prick."

Beau glowered at them, looking away and refusing to answer any more questions, her face red. That only got her a round of laughter from the girls.

_Great, now they had something else to embarrass her with._

* * *

Beau had been doing her very best to avoid Louise from the other day out of feat that she would be asked to play the piano again that she hadn't even noticed when Nathan had escaped the room in a hurry. It wasn't until later, when they were changing into their jumpsuits that she noticed that he wasn't around, offering his usual quips in an attempt to be funny.

It was Kelly who told her, pulling Beau aside as they left the locker room to go start collecting trash. Beau blinked in surprise, looking after the others in confusion before looking back at Kelly.

"What's up?"

"There's something wrong with Nathan," Kelly told her quickly.

He had been in a rather foul mood all morning, but Beau hadn't felt right asking him, not after she had refused to help him the day prior. Probably, he didn't want to talk with any of them.

"That's not what I'm talking about," Kelly said, shaking her head, obviously having read Beau's mind. "He's homeless and has been living in the community center."

Beau recoiled slightly, shock coloring her face. _"What?" _

Nathan was living in the community center? _Why? _Didn't he have anywhere else to go? Why didn't his mum take him in? These were all questions she wanted to ask but knew that Kelly wouldn't have the answers. So instead, she decided to ask Kelly something that she _would _have the answer for.

"Why are you telling me?" She asked.

Kelly huffed, shrugging slightly. "You're better at the talking thing than me. He'd probably just say something to piss me off and we'd end up arguing."

Beau couldn't argue with that. Kelly was _very _confrontational.

But how would Beau even bring it up to Nathan anyway? _Hey Nathan, heard you were homeless. Want a shoulder to cry on? _As if.

That line of thinking made Kelly snort slightly in amusement. "Look, you don't have to say anything to him if you don't want to, I just thought I'd tell you. Y'know, give you the chance."

"No," Beau shook her head quickly. "I'll talk to him."

She suspected this had been Kelly's plan all along. I mean, how could she _not _say something. Now she was worried about _where _he had been sleeping and what he had been eating and _why _he was even living in the community center in the first place.

"Where did he go, anyway?" Beau asked suddenly, looking back at Kelly.

"He went running out during the party," She explained. "Some old lady asked about him. Haven't seen him since."

Beau sighed, deciding that they should probably go find Nathan. Besides, living in the community center or not, that was no reason that they should be doing all the work.

* * *

When they finally found him, he was sitting beneath the bridge smoking a cigarette. He hardly looked up as they approached, staring at the ground as he took a drag.

"What happened to you?" Curtis asked as they drew closer.

The others had quickly agreed that Nathan would not be getting out of work and so they had set out to look for them. Beau and Kelly had not bothered to mention that something was clearly bothering Nathan and the others hadn't asked.

"I will not be in a room where that song is playing," Nathan said. "Line in the sand, my friend."

That didn't exactly narrow things down, did it? Beau was pretty sure there were plenty of songs that had been played that Nathan wouldn't like.

"Some old woman was looking for you," Kelly told him.

Nathan grimaced slightly at that and Kelly gasped, looking at him in shock, obviously having read his mind.

"_You shagged her!"_ Kelly accused, making the others look between her and Nathan in surprise.

"_What?" _Beau couldn't help but curl her nose up slightly in disgust.

"_Yeah." _Nathan scoffed. "Yeah, nice one. I gave her a right good seeing to."

Somehow, that was not entirely believable.

"You_ totally_ screwed her." Alisha laughed.

"You nailed that old woman? " Curtis asked, wrinkling his nose. "That is_ wrong._"

-"Did you enjoy it?" Simon asked.

"Shut up, you little freak," Nathan snapped, clearly horrified that they even knew.

"I think he did." Simon turned to look at the others with an amused sort of smile.

Beau didn't think that he had much room to talk. _He _had said that he wanted to piss on Alisha's tits.

Part of her wanted to tell the others to _shut up _and to hear Nathan out because _surely _he had not shagged some old lady right? But the other part of her was _horrified. _His reaction told it all and she could not quite wrap her head around the fact that he had shagged an old person.

"Are you into that?" Curtis asked.

"She didn't look like that when we started, okay?" Nathan told them quickly. "You remember that bird Ruth, from Tuesday? Beautiful. That wrinkly old bint that's her! It was the storm. It made her young again!"

The blonde girl he had been chatting up! Beau's eyes widened in recognition and Nathan looked thankful when he saw this.

"You remember?" He asked gratefully.

"I remember." The girl _had _been pretty and Beau had been jealous, she remembered that much. Now, she wasn't feeling too jealous at all.

"Please, please tell me you didn't… " Alisha began before holding her fingers up to her mouth and sliding her tongue between them, the gesture clear.

Nathan looked away, his own face wrinkled in disgust.

_Oh god, he went down on her. _

Beau still wasn't sure if she should feel disgusted or sympathetic, but it was better than laughing at him like the others were. And if he was telling the truth, which Beau had every reason to think he was, then it could hardly be blamed on him.

"_He did! He did!_" Alisha crowed, clearly ecstatic over this new information.

"_God's sake!" _Nathan turned and began to stomp away, leaving the others behind.

" Nathan wait!" Kelly called out, hurrying after him.

Beau was about to go after him as well, but Alisha wrapped an arm around her shoulder and asked teasingly "Do you still want to shag him after this?"

"_What?" _Curtis looked shocked by this, his mouth curling up into a grin. "You wanna shag Nathan?"

"Shut up!" Beau snapped, giving them both a glare, which in retrospect probably did not help her case.

The two of them started laughing and Beau turned away, shaking her head, before hurrying off in the other direction, wanting to leave their stupid laughing faces behind.

* * *

The day had been _exhausting. _So much so that Nathan was glad when he finally settled down on the thin little mattress he had been sleeping on with his crisps and fizzy drink in hand. The dinner of champions, he thought grudgingly, opening the bag.

He was really getting tired of vending machine food.

For a moment Nathan thought longing of his mother's home-cooked meals. She had never been a world class chef, but her food was definitely looking a damn sight better than _another _bag of sour cream and onion potato crisps.

He stared down at the bag with what could only be described as a look of utter loathing before diving a hand in to grab one. A_ perfect_ end for a _perfect_ day.

The sound of knocking at the doors to the community center made him jump slightly, and he looked up to see a now familiar figure standing there, holding a bag in hand and looking expectantly up at him.

_What was she doing here? _

After the day Nathan had had, he was hardly in the mood for more ridicule but he knew better than to suspect that from Beau. She was the only one who _hadn't _made fun of him earlier.

_How did she know he would be here. _

He worked his way down the stairs to the door before fishing his new set of keys out of his pocket and unlocking it for her.

Immediately, he was greeted by the smell of fresh, hot food and his mouth began to water almost immediately.

"Takeaway?" He asked in disbelief.

She shrugged slightly. "Thought you might be tired of crisps and candy bars. Can I come in?"

He stepped aside and she walked in, looking around the dimly lit room with a frown.

"It's creepy in here at night," She told him.

Nathan knew that all too well. He had been sleeping here for nearly two weeks.

"How did you know I was here?" He asked.

Beau hesitated for a moment, before sighing. "Kelly told me." she said before adding quickly, "She heard it in your head and got worried. Frankly, I'm worried too."

Nathan was surprised to hear this but really, he shouldn't have been. From Kelly, maybe. But Beau? She was _nice, _too nice to be stuck with an ASBO.

"I'm fine," Nathan told her dismissively, reaching for the bag to pull it out of her hand. "Is this Chinese food?"

"I wasn't sure what you wanted, so I just got lo mein. Figured I couldn't go wrong with noodles."

Nathan opened the top of the bag to peer inside and was surprised to find that Beau in stuck two cans of beer inside. He looked up at her and she shrugged slightly. "Figured you'd be tired of soda too."

She walked past him, reaching into the bag to snag one of the beers before starting up the stairs where Nathan's poor excuse for a bed was.

She looked at it with pursed lips before looking back at him. She didn't say anything though and instead sat down, popping the top of the beer as Nathan came to sit beside her.

He fished out two cartons of lo mein and two sets of chopsticks, handing one to her before opening his, practically salivating now over the smell of _real food. _

He took a bite and let out a hum of contentment. "Holy shit, you're an angel."

"Think of it as an apology," Beau said, before taking a bite of her's as well.

Nathan looked at her in confusion but she didn't look his way, instead looking determinedly down at her food.

"I should have told the other's to fuck off earlier," she said finally. "And I wasn't willing to help you yesterday, even though I had asked you to do me a favor. And… I'm sorry for what I said yesterday. It can't be easy for you to not know what your power is while the rest of us do. And I _do _believe that you have a p-"

She finally looked up at him to see an amused smirk on his face and frowned. "Do you just think _everything _is funny?" She snapped. "I'm here trying to apologize fo-"

"Do you apologize for everything?" Nathan asked, catching her by surprise.

"I- no?" She didn't look entirely sure.

"I'm not _angry _at you, Kitten." He told her, before taking a swig of his beer.

"Oh." She blinked, looking unsure what to say next.

"Although," Nathan continued. "If you're _really _sorry, there are a few ways you could make it up to me."

Beau snorted. "After you _just _shagged someone's gran? You should be so lucky."

"She wasn't a gran!" Nathan defended quickly, earning an actual laugh from Beau this time.

"That makes it better."

Nathan glared before turning back to grudgingly eat his food and drink his beer in peace.

This only increased Beau's laughter and even though Nathan was trying to keep up the pissed of facade he was secretly pleased. She had a nice laugh.

"I talked to Jeremy," he said suddenly. "He doesn't even _remember _chasing you."

Beau went silent, looking surprised. "Oh," she said. "So you sorted everything out, then?"

"Well, she's not going to leave him, if that's what your asking. But she loves him sooo…" he trailed off, rolling his eyes as if the whole concept of love was some big joke. But Beau smiled softly and nudged him.

"It's sweet," she said. "That you're putting your mum's happiness before your own."

Nathan wasn't doing it to be sweet, he told himself firmly. He had done it because… because…

_Because he loved his mum and wanted her to be happy. _

Yes, that was why. Stupid sentimentality.

"Is that why you didn't move in? Because you want her to be happy so you chose to stay at the community center?"

"No!" Nathan said defensively.

_Yes. _

Beau seemed to realize the truth on her own and kept looking at him with that same soft, almost fond smile on her face. "It's alright," she told him. "I won't tell anyone."

"Thanks for the food," he told her after a moment of silence, gesturing down to his now mostly empty container of takeaway.

"Sure," she shrugged like it was no big deal. "Is there anything else bothering you?"

He _could _tell her, he knew. Tell her about how he had found Ruth dead that afternoon. He could get it all off his chest and Beau wouldn't tell _anyone. _She was sitting there, looking at him with that open, sincere expression of her's and Nathan was suddenly compelled by the impulse to do just that but when had _he, _Nathan Young, ever been the heart-to-heart kind of guy?

"Nathan?" She prompted, clearly seeing him struggling.

Finally, he sighed, relenting. "I found Ruth dead today."

"_What?" _Beau looked quite startled at this revelation.

"Well, you know, she got old again," Nathan assured her. "And I guess her heart just gave out on her."

"Right… Are you okay?"

Nathan snorted slightly. "I'm not the one who's dead." He reminded her.

"Right but… well, you did shag her. And then she's dead the next day. That must make you feel _awful._"

It did, but he had tried not to think about it, had tried not to think about the way he had just run out and left her there, alone and scared.

"Let's play foosball," Beau said suddenly, catching Nathan by surprise as she stood up.

"_What?" _

"I've never played," she told him with a shrug. "So you're going to teach me."

She was trying to get his mind off of it and had thankfully seemed to realize that trying to get him to talk out his feelings was not the route to take.

"Sure," Nathan said, standing as well. "But I'm not going to go easy on you."

"Pfft," Beau rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't want you to."

* * *

Beau stifled a yawn as neatly piled her folded clothes into the locker the next morning. She was dead tired, but it was a good kind of tired, the kind that followed pleasant nights and left a warm feeling in your chest.

Nathan had looked quite tired this morning too, as well he should. They had played foosball until it was very late and though Beau definitely was not _good, _Nathan had assured her that she could easily beat Curtis.

Beau hoped so, as she was planning to challenge him just so she could show him up in front of everyone.

"I told you there'd be other people who got messed up by the storm." Kelly was saying on the other side of the lockers. "And you didn't believe me."

-Yeah, well, I was wrong, wasn't I? There's a hurricane of weird shit out there." Nathan snapped back before groaning. "Another oral sex gag. _Brilliant._"

Beau didn't need to see it to know that it had been Alisha and she knew _exactly _what the other girl had done.

"We need to be ready for when they come after us."

That was the moment Beau chose to round the corner and she stopped, seeing the look the others were giving Simon who had clearly been the one to speak.

"What're you talking about?" Kelly asked.

"The other people, who got caught up in the storm," Simon explained quickly.

He sounded like he had been reading too many comic books.

"Why would they come after us?" Curtis asked, clearly exasperated.

"Because that's what people do," Simon told him, patient as ever.

"Simon," Beau said gently. "This isn't a comic book, alright. And these other people are probably _just like us. _They just want to get through the day like us, yeah?"

"Don't worry," Nathan told him. "If they do come after us, we'll just tell them it was all your fault."

She sent Nathan a glare, but he had already turned away to open his locker and immediately froze.

"You know that note you found in your locker?" He asked, drawing everyone's attention to him. "I think it was talking about the probation worker."

He stepped inside to reveal a fresh note stuck inside his locker with **'I KNOW**' written across it. It was a missing person poster, and the picture on the front was a clear depiction of their last probation worker.

Tony.

"_Oh fuck," _Beau groaned wearily, putting into words what everyone else was feeling.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S**** NOTE:**** What's _this? _An update? So soon after the last one? Surely not! Well ha! Think again! I was so excited to write this chapter that it flowed pretty easily. You guys were so nice in your reviews that I couldn't help myself. **

**On that note, I'd like to thank you guys for all the lovely reviews I've received. You've made me so excited to work on Power Play so that I could get the next chapter out and see your reactions. So please, please let me know what you guys think in the reviews. Let this 11,000 word chapter be a testament to the fact that reviews really do inspire to get updates out quicker. **

**With that said, I am going to work of my Umbrella Academy fics next so that I have an excuse to justify dedicating more time to _Power Play _but I'm hoping that I'll be able to get the next chapter out fairly soon! **

**As always if you're interested in seeing updates about my writing or edits I've made for my fics you can follow me on my tumblr at harleyquinnzelz!**


End file.
